Online classes are back and with it the once familiar problems across homes.
No spare devices, parents juggling between the child’s class and their office or between rooms when there are two or more school-going children and network is far from satisfactory.
Most private schools have resumed online classes, which had been discontinued a year ago when in-person sessions were restored following a sharp fall in Covid cases, as the state government has ordered a weeklong closure of all educational institutions because of the heat spell.
Parents of children in the primary section need to sit with the young ones so they attend the classes uninterrupted. A child has to unmute the device when he or she needs to talk to the teacher. A student in kindergarten or Class I may not be savvy enough to do that.
There are homes where more than one child attends online classes and a parent has to share his or her device with one of them.
“We have one laptop at home which I gave to my elder child, who is in Class VIII. I gave my phone to the younger one, who is in Class V. I cannot use the phone for the five hours my younger child attends online classes. All calls to my phone during that period have to be disconnected,” said Priyanka Kochar, a mother of two.
It is a problem across homes.
“When you start online classes, the problems of Wi-Fi network and devices come up, because most parents cannot afford a device for every child. That has been our pandemic experience,” said Devi Kar, director, Modern High School for Girls.
The school has started online sessions for classes X and XII.
At least one school started receiving emails from parents citing device problems as soon as the announcement on the commencement of online classes was made.
“Quite a few of our parents, especially in junior classes, started writing to us that they do not have spare devices for their children,” said Amita Prasad, director, Indus Valley World School.