THE government has finally decided to introduce online classes three days a week and hold in-person classes for three other days, by curtailing the two-day weekend to a one-day affair in a select group of educational institutions only in the capital city in the next week. Online classes would take place Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays whilst in-person classes would take place Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays. The plan is to make teachers hold online classes by being present in the institutions. The move, which the government calls ‘a blended learning approach,’ will be piloted in educational institutions, which have the capacity to conduct online classes and a large number of students, as the education and the primary and mass education minister said at a briefing on April 19. The objective of the ‘blended approach’ is to reduce traffic congestion in the capital city, save energy and encourage online education. The minister has also said that the ministry would make decisions on free wi-fi facilities in educational institutions and the institutions would be able to buy electric school buses without paying taxes. The minister has also said that the system would gradually be put into action across the country if the piloting succeeds.
But, the decision has left teachers, students and guardians confused about the implementation of the system, as the minister was, until April 10, yet to issue any instructions on when the piloting would begin and in which educational institutions. There are other issues yet to be fixed. The objective of the plan is to reduce traffic congestion and save energy. But if students need to keep going to coaching centres, there will hardly be any effective results. The government would allow schools to buy electric buses without taxes, but what if some schools are not financially well off to buy electric buses? Schools with a huge number of students would need a large number of buses. The response of a few institutions, as New Age reported on April 10, suggests that many schools may take time to set up devices for online classes and teachers still prefer to hold online classes from home. If a family has more than one students, it will need to buy more than one mobile devices. Even if there are an adequate number of computers at home, the disruption in power supply, which is turning worse with the summer setting in further, would hardly allow students to follow online classes. This will also add to the teaching hours.
Whilst the treatment of students would be unequal, given that the facilities for online classes would vary and would not match in-person learning, which could again result in learning losses as it did during the Covid outbreak, the piloting of the plan, in all likelihood, would do more harm than good.
