Kemendikbudristek Encourages Schools To Use QR Codes To Monitor The Spread Of COVID-19 In Education Clusters

A number of students take part in face-to-face learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (Kemendikbudristek) encourages the use of technology such as the Quick Response Code (QR Code) in monitoring the development of the pandemic in education clusters.

"We encourage the use of technology to monitor the development of the pandemic in each educational unit. For example, we already have a Quick Response Code (QR Code) in each school," said Secretary General of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Suharti PhD, in a webnar on policy adjustments for the implementation of Limited PTM 2022 which was monitored in Jakarta, Monday.

If the school does not have a QR Code, Suharti asked each school to contact the education office. His party has prepared each school to have a QR Code.

In this way, the school will know if there are school residents who have been vaccinated and who have not been vaccinated. Even if, for example, someone is infected with COVID-19, a notification will be given to the school and the office so that further monitoring will be carried out.

"This aims to ensure that those who are infected or those who have close contacts can get treatment from the nearest health unit," he explained.

He hopes that with these changes, he can ensure that students, teachers and education staff and even families can be better protected.

Face-to-face learning is done on a limited basis, solely for the good of the school community. The implementation of distance education that was previously held, he continued, had put considerable pressure not only on students but also parents and teachers.

Even a study conducted by the World Bank also showed that there was a decline in students' abilities during the previous period, reaching 0.8 to 1.3 years of learning. This is very big, with a pandemic that has not even been two years but a decline in student abilities for more than one year.

In addition, there is a learning gap between children from rich families and poor families which is increasingly visible. For children from well-off families, learning at home is possible because they can access resources well and their parents are on average educated and able to provide guidance to children.

Meanwhile, for families who cannot afford it, have limited access to resources and generally their parents do not have enough education, so they cannot provide good guidance to their children.