Gujarat: Village school goes digital to conduct classes in Anand

VADODARA/ ANAND: Like all other educational institutions, this school in Anand district too is closed because of the 21 days lockdown. While the state has already announced mass promotion of students from Class I to IX, 200-odd students enrolled with this government primary school are taking their lessons at their homes.
Teachers of Gopalpura primary school are taking their classes through WhatsApp groups.This, they say, is a voluntary initiative to ensure that kids don't forget what they have learnt in their classrooms. And this initiative has found support from Anand district administration which has started promoting it as a model to educate children when they are away from their schools.
"Initially, this WhatsApp group was meant to share general information about the school schedule, programmes and other communication with parents," said Shalin Dabhi, principal of Gopalpura primary school. "But after March 25, every teacher selects a topic - be it simple dictation, multiplication, subtraction or tables of subjects like mathematics or alphabets of language subjects. The teacher then prepares videos which are posted on the group and students are asked to follow them up at their home with the help of parents," she said.
The school has nine teachers, of which six are involved in preparing this home-to-do digital syllabus. The school located nearly 3 km from milk city Anand has extra benefit as the kids are already tech-savvy.
For a population of just 3,000, the government school is equipped with five smart classes apart from computer lab with broadband connection thanks to support from NRI donors. Like Gopalpura, eight teachers of Jahangirpura primary school near Hadgood village are also involved in this digital education drive.
"We have 254 students in our school. The WhatsApp group formed has 200 members but many of them are wards of same parents or live in the neighbourhood. They share the content posted by our teachers. It also helps in long term as although students will get promoted, they can be made ready for the next class," said principal Mitesh Mecklin.
Anand district primary education officer (DPEO) Nivedita Chaudhary told TOI that there is no directive from the state government to this primary schools or teachers. "These teachers have taken this initiative just to ensure that the wards don't get cut off from their school," she said.