PARENTS OPINION ABOUT ONLINE CLASSES

Online classes may not be such a good idea after all, especially for kids

Online lessons have emerged as the go-to solution for schools looking to resume classes despite lock down. But experts are worried.

Online Classes Many challenges

The issues highlighted by the two UN agencies are echoed by teachers in India as well, some of whom have been pointing this out to the government from time to time. 

If the university plans to go for online exams, half the students who are in towns and villages of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar will fail for sure because they will not be able to connect,” he added

Parents Opinion for Online classes

Parents are saying online classes leading stress, eye problems and many more in children

Health problems are cropping up as screen time increases for students due to schools being shut because of the Covid-19 pandemic

A new reality

The warnings come as the government itself tries to wade through the various challenges of the situation. 

Schools and colleges across India have been shut since mid-March in order to enforce social distancing, which is considered the best bet for Covid-19 prevention in the absence of a vaccination.

Millions of children without a computer or internet

Even if teachers could be trained to do it better, virtual learning would still have a glaring accessibility problem. The households least likely to have the two things necessary for quality virtual learning to take place – a computer and high-speed internet access – are low-income households. And 

those households are the places where children fell behind the most in spring 2020.

The teacher added that many of the students didn’t “have the kind of devices, laptops, smartphones… or money to keep the connection going”. “These are real challenges that hinder the process of online learning,” the teacher said. 

Speaking to ThePrint, some school teachers complained that they were themselves struggling to get a hang of the technology. 

“The school wants us to make PPTs (Powerpoint presentations), record video lectures, take online classes through different apps, but they do not offer any clear instructions as to how this should be done,” A 63-year-old lady who teaches students at a private school in Hyderabad, said.  

“How do they expect a 60-plus teacher, not technically sound, to make this work?”

No online learning?

With schools closed from corona-virus, these teachers aired TV lessons

The study, by Common Sense Media, may slightly overstate the lack of technology because it relied on information households reported from the most recent Census. That means it didn't capture the thousands of devices and Wi-Fi hotspots schools distributed to families in the wake of the pandemic.

The alternative, should virtual learning continue, are thousands more lost hours of instruction. 

Parent groups want kids in school full time

Some parents fed up with virtual learning are pressuring districts to return kids to school full time, even if it means not physical distancing.

They say it's necessary for children's social and emotional well-being, as well as for the sanity of their parents and the sake of the economy. 

Some health experts back them up, saying that other preventive measures, such as universal mask-wearing, can help limit the spread of the virus in schools.

Some parents switch to virtual charters

Still, other parents worry about the unpredictability of fall classes, or the health of their students inside a school amid a pandemic. 

It's almost inevitable that brick-and-mortar schools will have to return to online instruction at some point in the next year as the pandemic continues