LokMarg brings you a ground report from rural India,
where in the absence of smartphones and computers, school children are unable
to study amid Covid-19.
Our reporter Praveen Sharma visits rural households in
Uttar Pradesh to find that a majority of students are unable to take advantage
of online classes. Parents say they can ill-afford expensive phones or data.
Result is most school children now idle away their time playing or running errands.
School teachers list out state government measures for distance learning as schools are yet to reopen. But poor households are unable to take their benefit. They are only waiting for the schools to reopen. Watch:
Anuj Agarwal, the
principal of a government inter college in Uttar Pradesh, says not all his students
had smartphones at home. So, he devised new ways to conduct e-classes
I
have been in the teaching profession for nearly 12 years now and I wish to take
education to the outermost fringes of society. I teach Social Sciences and
English, and I want to impart knowledge to anyone who is curious and dedicated.
However, when the Coronavirus struck and schools, colleges were shut down, it acted
as a sudden dampener to my purpose.
Our
government college, at Manpur in Moradabad, was established recently as the
first inter college in the area. We were in the middle of fine-tuning paraphernalia
when the virus outbreak happened. Since it was such an unprecedented crisis, it
took us some time to figure things out.
Most
of our students come from underprivileged background who either do not have
smartphones or cannot buy expensive data plans. Nor could we allow them to huddle
around a single smartphone for classes because of social distancing norms. We
therefore realised we needed to innovate to be able to continue teaching them
via distance learning methods.
You
will be surprised with what solutions small-town India can come up with to
overcome hurdles. Video calls hog data. So we decided to break down school
curriculum chapters into smaller topics, and then converted them into voice
data.
Next,
we disseminated the same chapters via various mediums. To explain some
subjects, we made videos on the topic and put them up on public platform like YouTube.
We ensured these videos were of short-duration. Those who had access to a basic
smartphone and a basic data plan, could opt for the video format.
For
those who could not access videos on their phone, we made small audio clips of a
few minutes each. These audio clips were sent through both WhatsApp and as
normal voice recordings. We also used standard SMS services to send written
material. This didn’t require any internet connection or downloading.
Plus, we told our students that we were available on call to clarify any doubt they might have on a particular topic. It’s ok if a student can’t see us, at least they can hear us and learn. So basically we prepared the same knowledge into different formats.
Agarwal believes teachers also learn from students.
What
prepared me for this was the fact that I had been a part of both Skill India
and Digital India programmes of the government. Thus, I understood the
technical aspects of e-learning.
Our
students have classes from 8 am to 2 pm. We have around 60 students in our
college and seven-eight teachers, and we keep brainstorming about how we can
make learning more accessible. Since I serve as both the Principal as well as
the Social Sciences teacher, I ensure that the children can come up to me
regarding any query they have about the subject. I have kept some time aside to
answer their queries related to Coronavirus or any other important social
issues. Many a time students surprise me with their ideas. Some of them who
have access to smart phones at times send us some interesting links and we
learn from them.
Thankfully
the electricity situation in UP has improved so the students face no problem in
keeping their phones charged for classes.
A
lot of people are currently praising the Kerala government’s idea of taking
education to children who don’t have access to internet through television, but
very few know that the HRD ministry had already taken this initiative like SWAYAM
Prabha.
For
many years (2008-2014), I was involved in teaching children of manual
scavengers. Teaching is a deeply fulfilling task and Coronavirus has taught us
the importance of being well-informed and adaptive in the face of uncertainty.
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