An online Islamic school cannot give a child Muslim friends, congregational prayer, a teacher who notices them in a corridor, or the ordinary social proof of being around other Muslim children. It can give them an hour of undivided attention a week, which a classroom cannot.
The five things it cannot do
Friends
A child in a weekend madrasah makes friends who are also fasting in Ramadan. A one-to-one lesson, however good, does not do this, and for some children it is the most important thing of all.
Praying together
Jamaah is something a child learns by standing in a line, not by being told about it.
Being noticed in passing
A teacher who sees a child in a corridor and asks if they are alright. Online, if the child does not say it in the lesson, nobody knows.
The ordinary majority
In a Muslim school a child is not the only one. For a child growing up as the only Muslim in their year, that experience is worth something no video call delivers.
A full curriculum
We are not a school. We do not teach Maths, we do not issue reports to an education authority, and we are not an alternative to schooling.
What it does that a classroom cannot
Attention
One child, one teacher, for the whole lesson. In a class of twenty a child recites for perhaps a minute. Here they recite for most of the half hour, and every mistake is caught the moment it is made.
Pace
A child who is behind is not left behind, and a child who is ahead is not held back. Neither is possible in a group.
Reach
A family with no local madrasah, or no local madrasah they trust, or a child whose only free hour is seven in the morning. The alternative is often not a classroom -- it is nothing.
Visibility
A parent can watch any lesson from the same link the child uses, without asking first. Very few in-person classes allow that.
How to decide
- If there is a good local madrasah and your child is happy there, keep it. Online is for what it does not cover.
- Many of our families do both -- madrasah for the community, one to one for the reading.
- If the choice is online or nothing, the comparison is not with an ideal classroom.
- If your child reads poorly after years of group classes, the problem is reciting time, and that is exactly what one to one fixes.
Related
What is an online Islamic school?
What the term actually means.
Academy or local masjid class?
The honest comparison.
Is an online Islamic school accredited?
What accreditation means here.