Over 40% govt school students did not attend online classes

nNEW DELHI: Fewer than six of 10 government school students in Delhi could access virtual learning — either through online classes or Whatsapp and interactive voice response (IVR) technology — during the first two months of the lockdown enforced to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, data collated by the government from its 1,030 schools shows.

The Delhi government’s directorate of education (DOE) had last month asked all its schools to provide details of students with whom they were in regular touch during the lockdown, how many accessed virtual learning and how many could not be contacted at all.

The data was sought along with other inputs to draw “micro plans” for each school whenever the situation favours reopening them for students, officials familiar with the matter said.

A senior government official, requesting anonymity, said, “It’s been found that 77% of the around 1,500,000 students, or 1,155,000, enrolled in Delhi government schools remained in contact with the schools during the lockdown. But only 76% of these 1,155,000 students or 877,800 accessed virtual learning either through online classes or Whatsapp and IVR technology during this period. This effectively means 58.5% of total students enrolled in 1,030 government schools had accessed virtual learning.”

According to the data from the months of April and May, 23% of 1,500,000 students or 345,000 could not be contacted during this period. Officials cited reverse migration and economic challenges as a major cause for the same.

Classes were suspended in Delhi schools on March 13 due to the spread of Covid-19 in the city.the Delhi government started conducting online classes for class 12 students on April 6 and sending e-learning material to those enrolled from nursery to to class 8 over Whatsapp or SMS.

The Delhi government had also provided a subsidy of Rs 200 for internet packages to all its class 12 students who had registered for the online classes.

Binay Bhusan, Director, DOE, said government schools will focus on students who could not attend online classes or access online learning once schools reopen.