NEW DELHI: Amid the pollution crisis, children as young as 4 years old, studying in Nursery classes, are made to attend three-hour online classes these days. Parents believe that the schools have made a joke of the entire education system.
According to the parents, there is no such urgency where we have to force the children to sit in front of phones and computers for three hours.
The online classes for the children kicked off on Monday, November 18.
One of the mothers from Mayur Vihar Phase II, Vartika Saini, said, “I don’t find the logic behind conducting online classes for children, especially, from pre-primary classes. On one hand, we involve them in games and other things to avoid screen time and at the same time, we are forcing them to look at the screens for three hours. What are they learning from this? As a mother, it has been so tiring to sit beside the kid and get the class done. It’s quite cumbersome. The schools can rather send us homework and we can get it done on a daily basis.”
Echoing similar sentiments, another parent Bhavika Aggarwal said, “How does online learning make sense for a kid? He can listen to the same stories the teacher is reciting on different platforms using their phones. The model of education has apparently changed.”
However, Bharat Arora, president of the Action Committee of Unaided Private Schools said that the schools have made a reasonable schedule for the pre-primary classes and primary classes in a way that there is less screen time.
The purpose is to involve them in activities such that they are not tired. The duration of one class is not more than 30 minutes, Arora added
He further said, “If not this then there is no solution for this. Classes can’t be completely scrapped.”
The step to move primary and pre-primary classes online was taken last week on November 14.
Chief Minister Atishi had announced that all schools up to Class 5 will switch to online learning till further directions.
“Due to rising pollution levels, all primary schools in Delhi will be shifting to online classes, until further directions,” Atishi, who also holds the education portfolio, said in a post on X. The air quality, since then, has deteriorated further. It is now in the ‘severe plus’ category.