Shifting from face-to-face to online teaching and learning: Growth opportunities experienced by Vanuatu primary school teachers

Abstract

Opportunities for teachers’ growth and development are important to support sustainable education in Vanuatu, Oceania, and beyond. Recently in Vanuatu as elsewhere, online learning has become significant, and its occasion under COVID-19 circumstances has been portrayed as a disruption. This study investigated the growth opportunities experienced by Vanuatu in-service primary school teachers during the shift from face-to-face teaching to online teaching and learning in the COVID-19 era. The research engaged sixty teachers across the six provinces of Vanuatu, exploring opportunities from both social and cognitive perspectives. Diverse growth opportunities in the form of sustaining learning benefits were uncovered. These included developing skills in independent learning, making use of available ICT devices, and designing personal study approaches. Hence, what may have been seen as a disruption is in part revealed as providing opportunities for professional growth and learning for the participants. Understanding growth opportunities, especially in circumstances of change, is important when approaching issues of sustainable education in Vanuatu and is relevant in Oceania and elsewhere.