‘Rural schools to open; classes to go online in others’

Chief minister (CM) Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday directed the education department to begin the academic year from June by opening schools physically in remote and rural areas and virtually in the rest of the state.

The schools in rural and remote areas will function with maintaining social distancing norms while in others the government hopes to start online education.the school education department is preparing a standard operation procedure (SOP) for the new academic year, tapping all possibilities of offline and online education through pre-loaded tablets, TV and radio channels, among others.

Thackeray held a video conference with education ministers, officials, experts from the field and legislators representing teachers on Sunday, to discuss the options to begin the academic year. The CM was also told that online education could hit a hurdle as only 3.3% of the total 2.30 crore households have computers. However, 70% of households have TV sets, which can be used as a medium of instruction.

“Some of the private schools have already started their academic year online. The problem lies for students in rural areas, where online platforms do not work. Thus, we have decided to open the schools in remote and rural areas. We will have another meeting in the next 3-4 days to decide the modalities on opening the schools,” said Omprakash Babarao Kadu, minister of state, school education.