21 / 32
Features
21
FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2020
Idlib, Syria (AFP) - Staring into a
smartphone camera in an empty
classroom in rebel-held northwest
Syria, geography teacher Danielle
Dbeis
addresses
students
confined at home away from the
novel coronavirus.
"Even if we are now doing
distance learning... you can still talk
to me online," said the 42-year-old,
standing in front of a white board.
Like in much of the world,
educators in Syria are taking classes
online after the country's various
regions sent pupils home hoping to
stem the COVID-19 pandemic.
But distance learning is no
small feat in a country battered by
nine years of war, where fighting
has displaced millions and the
electricity supply is sporadic at
best. Syria's last major rebel bastion
of Idlib has not yet recorded any
case of the virus.
But aid workers fear any
outbreak would be catastrophic
in the region, which is under a
extremist-dominated
authority
and home to at least three
million people.
In the main city of Idlib, Dbeis
points to a map of Syria she has
drawn on the white board, her
voice bouncing off the walls of the
empty classroom.
Her school used to teach
1,000 girls before it closed last
month, she said, but now only 650
have continued learning online
as the others have no access to a
smartphone or laptop.
Even those with the right
equipment face difficulties, said
the teacher, who uses WhatsApp to
send her students videos.
"Most students don't have
constant access to the Internet,"
she said.
And during long power cuts,
she added, they "are not able to
charge their phones".
At home elsewhere in Idlib city,
Nour Sermini spends her days with
her eyes riveted on her mobile
phone screen, books and notes
scattered around her on her bed.
Switching from one WhatsApp
group to another, the 17-year-old
checks in with her various teachers.
"We'll do anything not to miss out
on our education," she said.
The deadly virus is just the
latest of many obstacles to learning
in Idlib, she said, after years of air
strikes on the surrounding region
by Damascus and its ally Russia.
"The bombs didn't manage to
stop us from learning," and neither
will the virus, she said.
Since March, a fragile truce has
held in northwest Syria.
But months of bombardment
before that disrupted the education
of some 280,000 children, the
United Nations (UN) Children's
Fund said. Across the Idlib region,
more than half of the 1,062 schools
are now damaged, destroyed or in
areas too dangerous for children
to reach, according to Save the
Children. Displaced from their
homes in the rounds of violence,
hundreds of thousands of children
live in overcrowded camps or
temporary shelters, with little to no
water or electricity.
In one of these camps, in the
village of Kafr Yahmoul, Ahmed
Rateb has just finished recording a
maths class in a tent.
"We're trying as much as
possible not to deprive the
kids of an education," said the
29-year-old teacher, who sends
along his tutorials on Telegram
and WhatsApp.
But some are now unable to
follow for lack of a smart screen as
well as long blackouts inside the
camp, he admitted.
As the civil war enters its tenth
year, the Damascus regime controls
around 70 per cent of Syrian
territory after successive victories
against extremists and rebels.
In these territories too, where
Damascus has announced 19 cases
of COVID-19 including two deaths,
schools have closed their gates.
To make up for lost time, the
In war-torn
Syria, digital
learning battles
power cuts
A colleague films a lesson by Kurdish language teacher Hayat Abbas to be broadcast on local television and
YouTube for distance learning, in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province,
amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. PHOTOS: AFP
education ministry has started
beaming Arabic, English and
science classes into homes via a
special television channel.
But there too, power cuts
can last up to 14 hours a day, and
the government caps the size of
Internet bundles allowed for each
family. In the northeast of the
country, the semi-autonomous
Kurdish authorities are looking to
launch distance learning within
days, education official Nureddin
Mohammad said.
No case of the novel coronavirus
has yet been announced in the
region, where medical supplies are
limited and there are no tests.
Teachers are filming classes to
be broadcast on local television
channels and on Youtube, and
teachers will keep in touch with
pupils via WhatsApp, he told AFP.
Bandar Ismail, a 35-year-old
father of three, said he cannot wait
for the first episodes.
But he wonders whether the
authorities will be "able to ensure
sufficient power and Internet for
the project to succeed".
Kurdish language teacher Hayat
Abbas, meanwhile, said she already
misses teaching students in person.
In distance learning, "it's just a half-
an-hour lecture or less, and we try
to explain as much as possible,"
the 43-year-old said. "But you can't
answer pupils' questions."
A colleague records a lesson in an empty classrom by geography teacher
Danielle Dbeis, 42, to be broadcast for distance learning
FROM LEFT: Technicians from the Kurdish educational authorities edit and prepare recorded classes to be broadcast on local television and YouTube for distance learning; and a young pupil
follows a lesson on a mobile telephone inside a tent, in a camp for displaced Syrians in the village of Kafr Yahmoul in the northwestern Idlib province