The Student Learning Space (SLS) system is back on track after a “slowdown” on Wednesday (19 May) morning, as all primary and secondary, junior colleges and Millenia Institute moved into full home-based learning (HBL) today, said the Ministry of Education (MOE).
All primary and secondary schools, junior colleges and Millenia Institute, as well as special education schools, moved to full HBL from 19 May to 28 May, amid the evolving new strains of COVID-19 in Singapore.
In a Facebook post earlier today, MOE said it was aware of the “slowdown” in the SLS system this morning and has “immediately activated additional system resources”.
As of 9.30 am today, teachers have reported that the system is back on track, said the Ministry.
“The MOE HQ team is actively monitoring the system performance and working on the issues so as to minimise disruptions for the teachers and students,” it added.
“We apologize to everyone who was affected this morning.”
Although MOE noted that the SLS system has been restored as of 9.30am today, some parents claimed that their children were still unable to log in to the SLS system even until 10.30am.
Below is a screenshot of a teacher’s text message to parents, which indicates that teachers were still handling parents as of 10.40am today, asking parents to “be patient and allow the MOE ICT team to resolve the issue”.
Several parents also commented on MOE’s post, as well as CNA’s Facebook post on the matter, saying that the SLS system was “still down” even after the Ministry said the system has been restored at 9.30am.
From 10am to 10.52am, some parents commented that the SLS system was “still down” and students were unable to log in.
Several parents commented that students were still unable to log in to the system even after 11.00am.
One parent wrote that students were only able to log in to the SLS system at around 11.30am. 
Meanwhile, many netizens pointed out that “not much improvement” was made on the SLS system since last year, given that the system had the same problem last year.
They were referring to the SLS system issues which occurred in April last year when all schools were moved to HBL as part of the Government’s enhanced measures to control the COVID-19 transmission in Singapore.
One parent, named Benjamin Tay, took to Facebook on 1 April last year noting that “the system is crashing” on the first day of classes moved into full HBL.
But Mr Tay acknowledged that “these are teething issues” as it was the first time the HBL plan was rolled out.
“Teachers have put many hours into developing these resources for our children and I hope that their hard work will not go to waste simply because of technical capacity issues,” he added.
Then-Education Minister Ong Ye Kung, who is now Minister of Health, also issued a statement on Facebook that day, noting that “some teething issues” had occurred after receiving feedback that some students at home had problems logging into the SLS system.
“There is a lot of adjustment to be done. Hence it is important to get this started, involving every student, for one day a week,” he wrote.
As for the newly appointed Education Minister, Chan Chun Sing, he posted a Facebook over the matter to note that MOE is doing a review to identify the issue and will rectify it.
