THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as the state government is all set to start virtual classes for the new academic year on June 1, the teacher-student interaction will be a major problem as the teaching sessions will be telecast through television and web channel after pre-recording it.
Though sources close to general education department said the doubts of students could be cleared through WhatsApp groups created by class teachers, authorities cannot put in place a system for communicating with the students or their parents who don’t have even mobile phones.
Education activist M Shajarkhan said that virtual classes will not be a replacement for formal education. "Online class is an informal system of education. A teaching session will be complete only if teachers and students keep on interacting. In the new system, the students can only see it as a TV programme- like a person explaining things. This will not be an effective session. WhatsApp communication will also be ineffective as 20 out of 30 students in a class may not have smartphones in their homes. In such circumstances, what will the government do? So the teacher-student interaction is inevitable," he said.
Education experts said that virtual classrooms will only be a tool for the students to learn. They pointed out that online education is not formal education and virtual classrooms should be a prelude to regular classes which may begin once the COVID-19 crisis is over.
However, activists and experts are not blindly opposing the government decision as the virtual classroom system has its own advantages. For instance, the students can see the class sessions repeatedly through YouTube for understanding it clearly. Meanwhile, B Aburaj, Director, State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), told TNIE that teacher-student interaction can be facilitated only at the school level.
"Arrangements should be made by school authorities to make teacher-student interaction effective in addition to virtual classes. Teachers will be present in all schools when virtual classes start from 8 am on Monday. After the respective sessions, the students can communicate with their class teachers through phones. For the students who don’t have phones, the respective school authorities will look into it specially," he said.
Virtual classes to begin with CM’s special message
The virtual class sessions will begin at 8 am with a special message of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. After the message, classes for higher secondary students will begin. It will last for one-and-a-half hour. The next classes will be for Class X. The classes will be of one-hour duration and the subsequent sessions for other classes will have a duration of 30 minutes. The detailed time table is ready and will be released on Saturday.