For 14-year-old Nandni Gond, the biggest worry during the lockdown is that younger children in her village might forget what they have learnt at schools over the years. Sitting on a chair in the shade of a tree outside her house in Panna district, Nandni watches over a handful of children diligently bent over their notebooks, revising tables and reciting the Hindi alphabet.
“They used to run around the streets and played the entire day. They were beginning to forget whatever they had learnt,” says Nandni, daughter of a farmer, as she took classes for children up to Class 6 at Brijpur village on Wednesday afternoon.
Since March, when COVID-19 first struck Madhya Pradesh, the learning of lakhs of children has been disrupted as schools were closed. Yet, in an effort to help them with their education, the State government introduced the ‘Hamara Ghar, Hamara Vidyalaya’ programme that offers home-based online modules for Classes 1 to 8.
However, children from the 35-40 families in the Bhatia Tola hamlet of the village, where Ms. Nandni resides, depend on just two smartphones with internet connection to take down assignments in turns, said Anand Kumar Gond, of non-government organisation Vikas Samvad. He owns one of the two phones.
“Those who don’t have access to phones don’t get to study,” said Nandni, a Class 8 student.
“Therefore, we had to come together and form a group to continue learning.” She has been teaching Hindi and mathematics from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for a month now.
Deepa Gond, 11, finds studying in the open exciting. “Earlier I played with pebbles the entire day. Now, I go to play only in the evening,” she says. Her uncle owns the other smartphone, which he shares with two-three children.
Digital divide
The digital divide is widening during the pandemic, believes Bhopal-based Rakesh Kumar Malviya of the child rights NGO. “Even if the electronic media reaches more families, people may not know how to operate the gadget. Without being overdependent on the government, communities should come forward and develop such learning models wherever possible,” he said.
According to the daily monitoring report for July 28, just 29.7% of elementary school students in Panna district received assignments through WhatsApp. Modules from the State-level reach district-level officials, who forward them to the block-level, from where jan shikshaks send them to groups having guardians responsible for showing the content to the students.
Claiming that Panna district was among the best performers in the State, District Education Officer R.P. Bhatnagar said, “Even reaching 30% of the students is huge. Even if guardians have mobile phones, they may not have data. And sometimes, they may take their phones with them to work.”
‘On TV, radio also’
Mr. Bhatnagar says students who don’t have access to smartphones with internet connection need not be disheartened.
They could watch lessons telecast on TV or relayed through radio.
Mr. Malviya says online learning cannot be an alternative to conventional classes, and it lacked proper monitoring of the outcomes. But Mr. Bhatnagar says teaching is monitored daily. “Five students are picked randomly every day to take a feedback, which is sent to the State-level,” he says.
