Government Schools In Karnataka Will Resume From Today
Children inspect books meant to be distributed free in front of a government school in Jayanagar, Bengaluru
Government and other state board schools in Karnataka are going to reopen for the new academic year starting Thursday. However, the classes will be conducted online for the second consecutive year due to the risks associated with COVID. As the classes are to begin in a virtual mode, the teachers doubt the active attendance of students.
The teachers are instructed to identify students who have digital accessibility to gadgets like mobile phones, laptops, internet, television or radio. For those students, who do not own any of the gadgets or facilities, the parents are to be asked to avail help from neighbours who have access to the facilities. This still remains a difficult task as some of the teachers are preoccupied with COVID duties.
According to a high school teacher's association in Karnataka, almost 5000 teachers are still involved with COVID duties which include contact tracing, data entry and vaccination duties.
In conversation with a Government school headmaster, it was revealed that a lot of teachers in his school are still actively involved in COVID duties and are not yet released.
The teachers are further skeptical of the student's ability to understand and retain information through online classes. The teachers additionally said that they have formed WhatsApp groups to continue with the classes but a lot of students do not follow up with the information as their parents are often occupied with work.
The president of the School Development Monitoring Committee, Moideenkutty also said that they have made several appeals to the Government to reopen schools in the rural areas with less than 50 students as they do not have technological privilege.
They have also asked the parents to attend a meeting for better understanding of their technological availability but the response from the parents' side was not up to the mark. They have planned to decorate the empty classrooms and send pictures to the students as they miss their presence in physical classes as well.
The classes are expected to start from 5th July following an allotted timetable and the textbooks will be made available online. Preparations have also been made to make study materials available on YouTube and Deeksha portal.