Several schools have either stopped online classes for primary students or cut down on assignments because parents cannot devote too much time to monitor their online classes/activities while they themselves work from home.

Two schools have stopped online classes for primary students because children were unable to manage it on their own and parental supervision was hard to get.

In another school, teachers have reduced the scholastic activity from two to one every day for Class I after parents asked the authorities not to “give so much work”.

In another ICSE school, the authorities have decided to webcast a class on YouTube instead of online interactive sessions. “How is it possible for me to sit through a class every morning? I have to complete household chores and then log in to work. It is not a holiday just because we are at home,” the mother of a Class IV student of a south Calcutta school said.

She works with an insurance company.

The father of a Class III student said he had to switch on his laptop and turn on YouTube so his daughter could attend class. “After she is done I disconnect it. But it is still better than sitting through the entire class.”

The south Calcutta school that had held online classes for primary students for a week decided to change the mode of teaching and send recorded videos because online classes “had become a joke”.

“Not every child in the primary section can handle a laptop or desktop on their own… they do not know when they have to press the mute button. Some kept running away during class and parents had to get them back while the computer was not in mute mode… so, it kept disturbing the class,” a school head said.

In another south Calcutta school, teachers received mails from parents asking them to cut down on daily assignments. “We reduced from two scholastic activity and one co-scholastic activity to one each for students of Class I,” the head of the school’s primary section said.

Parents need not sit through the entire class but they can ensure children do not attend classes from a secluded corner in the house, another south Calcutta school head said. “This is to ensure children don’t browse other sites when they have access to computers,” the principal said.