Sabah teachers hail DidikTV debut
Published on: Thursday, February 18, 2021
By: The Star
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PETALING JAYA: The Education Ministry’s DidikTV with its 17 hours of daily educational content is expected to benefit many students, especially those who have been falling behind in their studies since the government closed schools almost a year ago, says Sabah Teachers Union president Said Saidi.A large portion of students, particularly from rural areas with limited or no access to online homebased teaching and learning (PdPR), stand to gain with DidikTV.
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“As DidikTV aims to give support to students learning at home, it would help the students to understand their lessons better.
“It does help students understand and acquire knowledge after their PdPR sessions and we hope it can become a teaching tool for teachers as well,” he said when contacted yesterday.
“However, there are still students living in homes which do not have access to free-to-air channels or even electricity supply.
“This means that they will not be able to access the channel,” he said.
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He also spoke on the role of parents in monitoring their children during the TV sessions.
The channel will air 17 hours of educational content based on the Education Ministry’s curriculum and co-curriculum every day, taking over the ntv7 channel and marking a new era in education on television.
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While lauding the extra hours of educational television, National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Harry Tan said students who only used Didik TV would still need to do a lot of self-study.
However, he said “something is better than nothing,” adding that he hopes this initiative will help sustain students’ interest in learning.
Tan also said it would be good to have experts from the broadcasting industry train the teachers who are presenting the programmes so that the “shows will be a hit every time”.
Parent Action Group for Education Malaysia chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said the long viewing hours and repeats on DidikTV would be able to accommodate households with more than one child.
“Having excellent teachers (cikgu cemerlang) to present lessons on it, too, will be an advantage and if the content is of a high quality, students will be drawn to watch them,” she said.
She, however, said DidikTV may not necessarily level the playing field among students in the country as those who could afford to have online learning enjoy the opportunity to interact with their teachers.
“Teachers should continue to facilitate students and not allow the TV to take over their responsibilities of teaching and educating.
“The subjects and topics that will be shown should be announced ahead for students to plan their day or week,” she added.
While Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education welcomed the initiative, its chairman Mak Chee Kin said a more effective method would be to have live sessions instead of recorded ones.
This, he said, would allow students to ask questions on the spot.
“It will make the session more interactive and interesting.
“Of course, DidikTv sounds good and beneficial on paper but the concern is students may not follow the lessons due to a lack of discipline.
“If there is no guidance and supervision from parents and teachers, they may not even tune in to the channel,” he said.
Last Friday, the Education Ministry announced that DidikTV will be aired from 7am to midnight daily.
“This channel will also broadcast news about the world of education, edutainment as well as content produced by students,” it said, adding that appropriate international programmes would also be shown.
The ministry said the channel would increase access to quality educational content for all students in Malaysia.
Previously, the ministry aired TV Pendidikan content on TV Okey RTM, Tutor TV ASTRO and DidikTV@ ntv7, totalling 11 hours.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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