BENGALURU: While various central agencies such as the NCERT have proposed exit models for resumption of academic activity, the state education department is looking at alternate modes of education - one of which is teaching through television.
In the regard, minister of primary and secondary education Suresh Kumar wrote to the central minister for information and broadcasting Prakash Javadekar, seeking approval for exclusive channels to teach through television.
He sought minimum three channels for the department of public instruction, the government of Karnataka, and on the government's Doordarshan network, citing that the government schools run in nine regional languages including English, Kannada and Urdu, and could "cater to all students, considering a long term stratergy to run the schools by maintainting social distancing."
The department has made arrangement for inhouse content creation by teachers, and has also been assured time slots of six hours in the existing chandana channel on a cost basis.
Suresh said, television was one of the best mediums to learn at home.
The department in a survey, learnt that of the various ICT infrastructure, such as smart phones, etc, television was the most pervasive with more than 95 percent of the households having a television set at their home.
Locals have been apprehensive over this move -- "TV is not an interactive medium and cannot provide two way interaction," said a social media user, while another condemned the quality of online system of education as well.
Suresh however did not announce on the commencement of schools.