For students, parents, teachers and managers of schools, distance learning was accompanied by new acquisitions and discoveries, creativity and efficient communication and contributed to strengthening learning autonomy, developing independent working skills, promoting a culture of confidence and a state of well-being. However, both the students and the teachers feel the need to interact in the real environment and are eager to return to school, shows a sociological survey carried out by the Institute for Public Policy with financial support from the Education Support Program of the Open Society Foundations, provided through the agency of Soros Foundation Moldova, IPN reports.

The survey revealed that about 15% of the students do not actively become involved in online activities and do not carry out the tasks proposed by the teachers and only a small part of the teachers proposed that the students should fill out reflective journals, asking them to note both the successes and the difficulties they faced daily or weekly and their emotional state.

It was established that the students, parents and teachers substantially improved their digital skills and this helped to diversify the methods of interaction between the teacher and the student and between the school and the family.

According to a poll conducted during the last two weeks, only 40% of the about 34,000 respondent students said they take part in lessons held online and only 76% of them fulfill the proposed individual tasks. Even if the number of teachers who hold lessons online is significant, representing 70% of the over 3,000 teachers who took part on the poll, only 20% of them said they give the writing of projects and portfolios as a task to students.

Within group discussions, the students said that in case of distance learning, compared with leaning in classrooms, they make greater effort, are more creative and can learn more about modern learning methods; communicate more with the parents; structure the activities more realistically; produce more original digital content and try to communicate more often with their teachers.

The teachers, being forced to work in conditions typical of the online environment, showed to be receptive to the needs of students, diversified the leaning activities proposed to students, orienting them to the individual needs of the students.

The goal of the study was to analyze the efficiency and efficacy of distance learning during the state of emergency and to identify solutions that can contribute to improving it. The sociological study is available on www.ipp.md, in the section “Publications”.