Notice to State, Centre on plea for online class

CHENNAI: An advocate has moved the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the State and Centre for taking appropriate steps to provide education through online and TV channels to the State and Central Board school students during the lockdown period.

A division bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice Krishnan Ramasamy, before whom the plea came up for hearing on Friday, ordered notice to both the State and Centre and posted it to July 6 for further hearing.

The petitioner A Syed Kaleesha, practising at the High Court, submitted that TV channels such as Swayam Prabha are telecasting round-the-clock high-quality educational programmes for the high school and college students.

Along these lines, the government should resort to providing education to school/college students, which has come to a grinding halt, through online and TV channels in a systematic manner, thereby ensuring uninterrupted education, he sought.

He further submitted that the academic year has ended and every student is due to move on to the next level now by default. However, to fill the gaps of missing last year’s education and to refresh themselves while starting for the next year, some sort of education through online will be of great help to the students.

He added that school and college students are wasting their time during lockdown without any education and fear is fast setting in that many would lose their learning skills due to lack of educational activities.