SINGAPORE – Some students were unable to access the Student Learning Space portal used for home-based learning Wednesday morning (May 19), on the first day of classes moving online.
In a statement, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said it is “aware of the slowdown of the Student Learning Space this morning”, as all primary, secondary, junior colleges and Millennia Institute moved into full Home Based Learning.
“We immediately activated additional system resources and as at 9.30 am, teachers have reported that the system is back on track,” it said.
All primary, secondary and junior college students, as well as those from Millennia Institute and special education schools, have begun full home-based learning which will last till May 28 when the school term ends, after a spike in Covid-19 cases in the community.
MOE said its team is actively monitoring the system’s performance and working on the issues, so as to minimise disruptions for the teachers and students.
“We apologise to everyone who was affected this morning,” it said.
Parents told The Straits Times their children were having trouble with accessing parts of the website after logging in.
Parent Yeo Sha-En, who has two daughters aged seven and 12 studying at CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, said her younger daughter managed to log in at 8am ahead of her lesson, but at 8.20am the portal became laggy when more people logged on.
Ms Yeo, 39, said the problems persisted till about 9am for her Primary 1 daughter, who could not access her lessons.
“We did work that could be done offline instead like handwriting worksheets,” she said.
Her older daughter, who is in Primary 6, could access the section that provided links to a Zoom call with her teacher.
Other parents also complained about the issues with the portal on online chat groups, said Ms Yeo, founder of Happiness Scientists, which conducts programmes and talks on positive psychology.
Mr Leonard Ng’s two sons – aged seven and nine – could not get on the portal to do their work.
“The kids were not able to log on and I could see the parent chat groups flooding with texts about whether anyone was able to get through,” the 39-year-old said.
Both boys – in Primary 1 and 3 at St Gabriel’s Primary School – tried to get online at 9am.
Mr Ng’s older son managed to log on several times, but was met with a time-out page on some sections. He finally logged on at about 9.20am, while his younger brother got on at 9.45am.
“We just kept trying to refresh the page, because we didn’t know when we would get through,” said Mr Ng, a counsellor with a social service agency.
The Student Learning Space had also experienced similar issues when hundreds of thousands of students tried to log in for home-based learning in April last year.
MOE said then that it resolved the issue quickly to better manage the rise in user numbers, and added it would ensure the system remained accessible throughout the full home-based learning period during circuit breaker.
ST has contacted MOE for more information about Wednesday’s incident.
