Students may not be able to keep tablets given to them by BMC

the summer vacations, civic school students may not be allowed to take their tablets home as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) discovered that children were not taking precautions while handling their devices. The civic body is mulling the idea after it found several tablets with scratches and broken screens.

“We received many tablets that were damaged. So the administration is thinking of not allowing students to take their devices home,” said Mahesh Palkar, education officer, BMC.

After criticism from several quarters, the BMC had initially allowed Class 8 students to take tablets home, a year after the launch of the e-learning initiative in 2015.

Based on their initial experience, the students from other standards were also allowed to take their tablets home. However, the damage sustained by these devices has made the civic body reconsider its decision. The Shiv Sena’s pet project was launched to reduce the weight of the bags and curb drop-out rates in the civic schools.

The idea, however, drew flak from the activists and the corporators who wondered if the whole initiative was futile two years later its launch.

“These tabs are now students’ property. How can they be disallowed to take the tabs home. Moreover, many students still don’t have tablets,” said Prithvi Raj Maske, president, of Sangharsh, an organisation that has filed petition in the Bombay high court against non-availability of tablets.

“The decision to introduce tablets was a bad one , and now it is a mess. To fully utilise these tabs, the students must be allowed to take them home,” said Rais Shaikh, group leader, Samajwadi Party (SP).

In addition,the BMC is also planning to boost its virtual classrooms initiative and aims to bring about 200 additional schools under the project.

“Students will be able to access the virtual classroom from their homes by logging on to the website using an unique ID and password, provided s/he has an internet connection and a digital device. However, a student will only be entitled to this if s/he is absent for a genuine reason,” said Mahesh Palkar.