For representational purposes
BHUBANESWAR: The digital learning programme of the State government is failing to make a mark as the majority of students are skipping it on a regular basis. Even as the School and Mass Education department claims that around 22 lakh students have access to online learning after outbreak of the pandemic, the combined views of all channels of Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) on the YouTube platform is not even half of it.
OSEPA has created 10 channels, one for each class, for live streaming of lessons on the platform. However, the total views these channels garnered till 6.30 pm on Thursday was only around 10.3 lakh. The number could be even less as it is not clear how many of these views were by students.
The views during live streaming of these classes also remain less than 40,000 for most of the classes, indicating that many students, including those having access to mobile and internet connection, are skipping it. As per statistics of OSEPA, views of Odia lesson in Class I, till 6.30 pm, was around 49,000, while for Class II it was 68,000. For classes III, IV and V, the views were 84,000, 89,000 and 64,000 respectively.
The data suggested only views for lessons of Class VII for Odia was over one lakh. In Classes VI and VIII, the total views for Odia were 78,000 and 74,000 respectively. At the secondary level, only 78,000 views were garnered by the OSEPA channel for Class IX Odia lesson. The views for Class X history during this period was 1.6 lakh. Online attendance for mathematics classes at elementary and secondary was equally dismal as just around 43,000 views were recorded for Class I and only 1 to 2 lakh for other individual classes.
Officials admitted that with more than 60 lakh students enrolled in schools, only around 16 per cent of students have been able to access it so far. Meanwhile, the State government has asked school teachers to reach out to parents to increase views and ensure students do not skip the digital learning programme.
Speaking to TNIE, OSEPA State Project Director Bhupendra Singh Poonia said district authorities have been directed to instruct school teachers to speak to parents and encourage them to allow their wards to access YouTube classes at any time of the day.
“Though we are streaming the classes live, students can access them anytime on OSEPA channels on the platform and parents must find time to facilitate viewing of the online teaching programme for their wards, especially at the elementary level”, Poonia said. He said the views (number of persons who watched the video) at Class IX and X level are hovering around four lakh a day. It, however, has remained less at the elementary level (from Class I to VIII).
The State government had launched live streaming of classes on YouTube for school students of Class I to X from June 22.
