Over 40% of Carlow teachers report slow or bad internet connection in their own home

Almost 60% of Carlow students have reported a lack of device or internet access while studying at home.

Ireland's patchy broadband infrastructure network and poor levels of student engagement are impacting teachers' ability to provide students with remote teaching.

A major survey of second-level teachers by Studyclix.ie has found that unreliable internet access for teachers at their homes was a barrier to teaching for one in three teachers (35%).

In Carlow, 42% of teachers surveyed reported slow or bad internet connection in their own home. Meanwhile, 58% of teachers here reported a lack of device or internet access among their students. 

In terms of the bad internet connection, this increases in rural areas such as Mayo (53%) and Wexford (50%) where teachers in these areas reported bad internet connection as a barrier to teaching online. In Co Cavan, this was 48%.

Over 29,000 second level teachers are registered with Studyclix.ie, which has 190,000 student users. 1,500 teachers responded to the survey, carried out on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

As well as bad connectivity, almost eight out of ten teachers (78%) believe that a lack of student engagement is a barrier to teaching with many students apparently not responding to or engaging with teachers.

One reason for that is that many second-level students do not have access to a device with 47% of teachers reporting that this is an issue for their students.

Teachers themselves are struggling with the technology, with three out of 10 teachers saying they lack the technical know-how to effectively carry out online teaching.

Studyclix founder Luke Saunders said: "I welcome Minister McHugh’s recent announcement of €10 million top up funding for ICT hardware such as laptops.

"Schools have now been closed for almost 6 weeks and I think it’s vital we get these devices to exam-year students who need them as soon as possible to avoid them being disadvantaged for any longer."

Many others have quickly embraced technology as part of their teaching.

"In the past five weeks, Studyclix.ie has recorded huge growth in the number of teachers using its quiz and exam building tools, and the company has increased capacity on its server infrastructure. 

When asked what tools they were using online, teachers said Studyclix.ie (70%); Google Classroom (41%); Microsoft Teams (41%) and Zoom (26%).

Commenting on the overall survey results, Luke Saunders said: "There is a clear disparity in the view on online learning from the teacher and student perspectives. Our recent student survey showed that 79% of students felt they could be getting better support from their teachers while teachers report an overwhelming lack of student engagement.

"Our results also show a really pronounced digital divide emerging whereby certain students and teachers are being disadvantaged by Ireland’s poor broadband infrastructure. I feel that students in remote rural areas and those in disadvantaged urban areas are being particularly left behind."

But despite the technical challenges, it seems many teachers are working more hours and they are finding online learning more difficult than classroom teaching. 93% say it more difficult to work from home, with 79% saying they are working more hours.

Luke Saunders said: "I think there has been a lot of comment in the media about how some teachers are not pulling their weight when it comes to delivering remote lessons and sending their student work online.

"My experience from talking to many second-level teachers in recent weeks is that they are finding the prep time in delivering remote lessons to be very time consuming and stressful, particularly when many are trying to home school their own children. The consensus I am hearing is that they would much rather be back in the classroom with their students."

An overwhelming majority (74%) of teachers say the Department of Education made the right decision to postpone the Leaving Cert with half of all teachers (51%) saying predicted grades would not work for Leaving Cert students.