The Samoa Information Technology Association has got its eyes on Samoa’s primary schools going online to run their classes as the state of emergency (S.O.E.) lockdown continues.

The Association’s President, Fainu'ulelei James Ah Wai, told Samoa Observer that they are ready to extend their ‘Samoa Information Technology Association E-Learning Platform’ to primary schools.

"The platform is ready, it is divided into two which is the ‘learning press’ and ‘Moodle’, which is all under the Samoa Information Technology Association E-Learning platform. The primary schools are using the learning press which is an open-source software as well,” he said.

"We decided to divide the platform to maintain speed, ability, and capacity. We decided to host it on cloud and it's fast with a big bandwidth so we should be able to accommodate most of the schools.”

The Association has approached a few schools and is yet to receive a response, according to Mr. Ah Wai. But they are positive that by next week a primary school will be on board.

The key difference between a college and a primary school using the online platform is the involvement of parents, which the Association says is necessary.

"All schools have a Parent-Teacher Association and I think the parent's voice will come through here and it is very important because what parent wants to give full control, especially the young kids to access any information? There will also be some supervision during those times," he added.

Mr. Ah Wai added that the online learning platform is user-friendly and they did not want to make the learning experience complicated for the primary school students.

"Once we have the endorsement of the primary school then we give them a briefing of what the platform is all about and how to use it. Once all parties agree then we will have the training," he added. 

"We want them to know how to use it. It all depends on the classes, we have to be very specific and very selective of which class to come on board. We are looking at Year 8 to start with because they are preparing themselves to go to secondary schools just like how Year 13 is preparing to go to University. That is why we chose these groups for now."