Online classes gaining momentum in Telangana

Hyderabad: Strict monitoring by district level authorities and donations of televisions sets and smart phones by philanthropists, officials and voluntary organisations to the underprivileged children across the State have been a major source of help and motivation for students to participate in the online classes launched by the State government on September 1.

There have been a couple of unfortunate incidents where students have died by suicide since they couldn’t access the online classes as their parents couldn’t afford to buy them smart phones or the families didn’t own TVs. But, by and large, students’ participation had been encouraging, thanks to the proactive measures taken by the State government, the awareness being spread by officials as also donations of TVs and smart phones. Officials including district Collectors have also been donating smart phones to the less fortunate students in several districts if a particular instance is brought to their notice.

What is heart-warming is that students who do have access to these gadgets have begun sharing with neighbourhood friends, besides officials also putting in efforts to pair ‘have’ students with ‘have-nots’ in some places as happened in Adilabad district where 5,818 students were identified as not having any access to digital education. “These students are being grouped with others who have either smartphones or TVs at home with the consent of the parents,” Adilabad District Educational Officer Ravinder Reddy told Telangana Today.

In the Agency areas of Kothagudem district, teachers have been made to adopt a certain number of students for effective and constant monitoring, says T Ramanaiah, ITDA’s Academic and Community Mobilising Officer at Project Monitoring and Resource Cell (PMRC). “Each Ashram school teacher has adopted 15 students while primary school teacher have adopted 10 to ensure that every student attends online classes and to clear their doubts.”

“The purpose of adoption duty is to see that no student is left out,” chips in ITDA’s Deputy Director (Tribal Welfare) Shaik Zaheeruddin.

Karimnagar District Collector K Shashanka, Nalgonda TSRTC Regional Manager Ch Venkanna, Excise inspector Santhosh Reddy ZPHS Kaleshswaram headmistress Manimala, among others, have donated either TVs or smart phones to students who can’t afford it. Teachers of Jangedu ZPSS also pooled in money to buy two TV sets for student of Veshalapally and Peddakuntapally villages.

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