Students have been taking online classes for the past year amid the pandemic.
New Delhi:
Bhushan, 16, a class 11 student, and his 15-year-old sister Renuka, who is in class 10, live in a one-room house in Delhi’s Trilokpuri. They are among the thousands of students across India who have been out of school in the last year and have to rely on online classes.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) decision to retain 100 percent of the 9-12 curriculum for this session, as opposed to the 30 percent reduction last year, has hit them hard. In their case, the challenge is greater: They take classes online at night on the family’s only phone when their father comes home from work.
With a family income of 15,000 rupees a month, her parents cannot afford another smartphone. His mother is a social worker and his father is a clerk in a small private office.
“His father leaves at 7.30-8 in the morning and there is no telephone until night. They miss all classes. They only access the videos when he returns, but they lose the opportunity to ask questions of their teachers during classes in I live. There is no one to solve their doubts. It has been very difficult for them and covering the entire curriculum is out of their reach, “said Jyoti Mahore, mother of the two brothers.
In accordance with the new curriculum published by the CBSE, the chapters that were cut in the last academic year have been restored to the curriculum for the 2021-22 academic session.
The CBSE announced last year that reducing the burden of the curriculum was a unique initiative, as teaching and learning through online media was fairly new at the time, when the lockdown began amid the pandemic. .
The CBSE had removed chapters on democracy and diversity, demonetization, nationalism, secularism, India’s relations with its neighbors, and the growth of local governments in the country, among others.
The election of the chapters had drawn criticism from opposition political parties and academics who said the measure was “ideologically driven.”
Akshat Srivastava, 15, lives in an elegant residential society in Noida. He attends classes on his personal laptop and has all the resources he needs, but online classes have limitations for him too.
“I was hoping they would cut down on the curriculum. Next year I’m going to sit for my 10th board exam and I’m worried. It’s very easy to get distracted in online classes where you can open another tab simultaneously to watch YouTube or Netflix The lack of direct teacher presence is another drawback. Our math teacher could look at a student and know that he is not understanding what is being taught and he would point and check. Now the students can leave the screen blank and wander to another room, “said Srivastava.
Her mother, Simrat Srivastava, said: “It took them the last year to learn how online classes work. Concentration problems are a big hurdle with online classes. If it’s not 30%, the government should cut at least one 25% or 15% “. percent of the syllabus. “
Schools have not opened for more than a year in several cities and given the increase in COVID-19 cases, they are unlikely to open anytime soon.
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