Teachers in India from across all leading schools are struggling to impart quality online teaching to the students which eventually mean that students are at loss at the end.
This is not the scenario of a government school, but of various reputed schools of the country. As per a survey conducted, one in seven teachers at central government schools and one in five at other CBSE affiliated schools consider online classes as difficult or burdensome to conduct.
The survey was designed by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and executed by Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and CBSE. The survey concluded that around 17.6 percent teachers are uncomfortable with online education.
Around 3,543 teachers, 18,188 school children, 253 principals and 1,26,124 parents have participated in the survey.
The experts of education sector claimed poor training and lack of preparedness for the reason behind this failures and it will eventually result in deficient learning among a sizeable segment of the students.
Schools were shut down since March because of the corona pandemic and since then, classes are being conducted online.
NCERT has recommended training the teachers to hold online classes and pairing students without devices to attend these classes with those having them, if necessary.
If an average 15 per cent of these central schools’ teachers are finding online classes difficult, the figure would be much higher among teachers in state government schools in the rural and tribal areas, said N.K. Ambastha, former chairperson of the National Institute of Open Schooling.
About 32.4 percent of the KVS students, 28 percent at the Navodaya schools and 39 percent at private CBSE schools have given negative feedback on online education.
Among the principals, about 11 per cent from the Kendriya schools, 13 per cent from Navodaya schools and 25 per cent from the other CBSE schools expressed discomfort with online education. Among parents, the figures were 31.6, 28 and 35.3 per cent, respectively.
While the lack of attendance of students have been cited as one reason, owing to lack of mobile phone devices and internet connectivity, the inability to pay enough attention to individual attention to the students have been cited as another reason by the teachers for the “discomfort” in online teaching.
The NCERT has recommended online programmes to train teachers in alternative (non-classroom, non-online) ways of imparting education to children who may lack smart phones, laptops or quality Internet connectivity.
These children can, for example, be supplied periodically with work sheets (exercises) and reading material by the school through volunteers, and the teachers may pay periodic visits to teach and assess their progress.
These teacher training programmes may be conducted by the State Councils of Education Research and Training or the District Institutes of Education and Training, the NCERT has said.
