About 10 children in third standard of a government primary school in a small town of western Uttar Pradesh huddle together every morning, forgetting physical distancing that is norm these coronavirus disease days, to get questions from their teacher. They solve the questions, take photos of the answers and send the photos to the teacher.
Sounds good. But scratch a little and the reality emerges. This particular class has 41 children and only three children have smartphones in their homes. Clearly about 30 children are left out of this learning. What will happen to these children? Will they not lag? The teacher says yes they will left, but she can’t do anything.
About 80 km from Lucknow, a primary school with about 175 children is run by an assistant teacher and a shiksha mitra (para-teacher). The assistant teacher prepares questions for children from class 3 to 5 and sends them to gram pradhan on his WhatsApp. The gram pradhan asks a few children to note down questions on paper and circulate among them. Beyond this nothing happens.
In eastern UP in a school near Bihar border, children are not learning online as their village gets very poor mobile signal, though they have heard of e-learning. They have to borrow phone from male members of the family if they wish to talk to someone. During the long lockdown boys just loiter on the village streets and girls are forced to do household chores. They fear if the schools do not open in July, they will be forced to plant paddy in the fields.
Lack of smartphones and poor availability of highspeed data in small towns and villages is one of the hindering factors in e-learning. This digital divide puts children in rural areas and those in urban areas studying in government and aided schools in a disadvantageous position. These children come from that section of the society which is not well off. Buying a smartphone for their families is a big deal.
Representational photo from internet
As a parent living in a city I often think what you unfolded not only in rural but also on urban areas of U. P and likewise in most states. The situation for parents is grim nowadays becuase of smarter generation coming up. But it is worse for both economically and technologically poor parents and their children. Sir ! this is still the best Debatable topic for a country like ours which is still developing. Good one Shachinderji!
All this drama of e-learning should stop at once. When under right to education students till class 8 cannot be failed then there will be enough time to teach them once the pandemic is over. If at all teaching syllabus is so important during this testing time then it should be restricted to students who would appear for board exams. Rest everything can wait. Life is more valuable.
Very nice
Yehi reality Firozabad ke child labour ke sath hai sir
This is what we have developed in due course after independence