Education

In Part 1 of this series, we found that online education in government schools is largely limited to WhatsApp messages, and that many children are unable even to access them. At the other end of the spectrum are well-established and high-end private schools that are also conducting online classes since the pandemic began. In Part 2, we find out whether they have made online learning effective. Aparna Hariharan conducts tuition classes in maths and science for Grade 5-10 students who study in private schools. She says her workload has multiplied since COVID. Her students say the syllabus was covered in…

Ranjitha R and Varun Madhugiri, parents to three and a half-year-old twins, recall with wry humour what it has been like since the first lockdown was announced in March 2020. The daycare centre the twins went to, closed. For this working couple, the next year and a half was about juggling work, domestic chores, parenting, teaching and managing the pandemic. They have now come to accept the new normal, albeit reluctantly. There are good days and bad days, but there is no rhythm to it. Like all parents, they are noticing behavioural challenges with their children, besides their own rising…

Basamma thinks her children's school should not have promoted them this year. A resident of Chinnapanahalli near Whitefield, Basamma, who makes a living by doing domestic work, sends her daughter and son to the nearby government school. The school had no online classes at all. Yet, her daughter is now in 7th standard and her son in the 8th. "They only watched lessons on DD Chandana channel (on TV) and spent most of their time idling and playing. They learnt nothing," Basamma says. Before COVID struck last year, Basamma used to send them to tuition classes. But that stopped with…

Pratishtha Shelatkar, a student of Suvidyalaya High School in Borivali, a government-aided private school, used to attend morning classes before the pandemic struck and schools were shut down. Most kids in Pratishtha’s class come from underprivileged families with their parents working as labourers, cleaners or other low income jobs; hence, families of these children can barely even afford to pay bills, let alone be able to afford a smartphone and timely data recharges.  In most of these families, only one of the parents has a smartphone but the children don’t have access to it until the parents come back home…

As compared to developed countries, school students in India were never well equipped for online classes via mobiles and computers. We are still in the process of training teachers and students to handle computers and smart phones and get familiar with the meaning and concept of virtual school and virtual learning. Yet, this seems likely to continue for more time to come, especially for primary and middle school grades. Under the circumstances, teacher training also needs careful deliberation. The pandemic forced ill-prepared students and teachers to lock themselves up in a room and start learning and teaching by gazing at…

The school education department has announced that September 1 could be the tentative date when schools reopen across Tamil Nadu. Following this, the Department of Public Health has issued a set of detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for school reopening, covering the various precautions and safety measures to be taken by school to prevent spread of COVID-19. General guidelines for school reopening SoPs along with IEC materials to be shared to school management.Sanitizers/soap with water to be made available by the concerned authorities .Schools (Government,Government aided and Private) have to open the campuses in phases, with such activities where they can easily adhere to social…

Susheela Kumari was a quiet, average class 5 student studying in a school run by one of Delhi’s three municipal corporations. Now, authorities in two schools are looking for her. Susheela has not violated any law. And she is not the only student for whom there is such a close — almost police-like — hunt! This scenario playing out in the national capital could be described as bizarre — teachers in both municipal corporations schools and schools run by Delhi government are in a race to locate students like Susheela who have passed the 5th class. The reason given is that these…

Sandhya R, a 3-year-old preschooler, gets distracted and restless every five minutes even while her online classes are underway. Her mother, R Saritha, an IT employee from Adyar, has to take a break from work often to pacify her and get her back to focussing on the screen. “Since my work is flexible, I have the advantage of being able to take breaks to attend to my daughter when she needs me. But online classes have been very challenging, as she is too young to concentrate on, or engage with, what is happening in these virtual classes,” shares Saritha, a…

The pandemic has had a crushing impact on the educational framework of the country in various ways. One of the fall-outs has been the cancellation of Class XII (and Class X) final examinations by all the major boards of education in the country, in view of the aggressive second wave of COVID-19. However, under the said circumstances, each has come out with a different model of evaluation for Class XII students. The results of Tamil Nadu State Board Class XII were declared on June 19, 2021. For the first time ever, students got their results on their registered mobile number,…

Academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 were indeed tough on children, parents and for over 50 school boards, for whom COVID posed a serious dilemma — to hold or not to hold exams. Finally, the Prime Minister had to chair a meeting to arrive at a consensus saying ‘No’ to holding class 12 examinations under the CBSE. Then a new search began: how to declare Class 12 CBSE results in that case? The only way was to depend on Class 10 board exam results, performance through Class 11 and internal assessments conducted by the schools, including the pre-board exams. But this…