AP Government embarks on imparting lessons online

Amaravati: The State government has begun imparting lessons online in times of Covid-19 following the instruction by Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The Education Department has been conducting virtual classes using the Skype, Cisco, Teamlink, Google Meet and Microsoft Team to conduct online lessons.

In the times of lockdown, over 24,000 students and 933 teachers are taking part in the online classes. Those who do not have access to online facility, lectures on various subjects are uploaded on YouTube and the links are being shared to enable the students to get the benefit. Lecture notes are also being shared through WhatsApp and e-mail.

Presently, a total of 5,979 classes have been organised covering various streams such as BTech, MTech, BA, MA, MCA, MBA and other disciplines.

Efforts are on to complete pending syllabus and engage students productively during this time of lockdown. At a higher level, Universities are encouraging students to enrol for free online courses from platforms like Udemy, Coursera, etc and utilize resources like MOOC, SWAYAM, and NPTL too.

For school education, Doordarshan lessons are being beamed 10th class students. The lessons are telecast daily for two hours in the morning and evening. Radio lessons too are broadcast daily.

State self-learning app named Abhyasa is loaded with 10th class subject videos pooled from Dhiksha and objective type question papers were also posted for practise.

The government is planning to create WhatsApp group at every school which will include teachers and 10th class students. Important practice questions will be posted daily on the TV/Radio lessons in these WhatsApp groups, where students can answer at their home and send photos of the answer sheet which can be evaluated, and feedback will be given.

Webinar and pre-recorded videos in SCERT YouTube channel on questions and answers, discussion and keywords for each and every important topic will be available.

On the same lines, for all the lower classes during June and July, online classes will be telecast, broadcast and also will be posted in WatsApp groups.

Because of the new curriculum of the State, webinar series is organised from May 4, for all teachers and daily self-assessment tests and notes are shared.

Counselling sessions are being provided by some universities with the support of their Psychology Department to cater to the needs of the students and the society at large during these times to beat fatigue, despair and monotony.

Phone numbers for the counseling are posted on the University website. As of now, Sri Padmavati Mahila Vishvavidalayam, Adikavi Nannaya and Yogi Vemana University are offering counselling.