UP: Amid Lockdown Extension, Yogi Adityanath Govt Set To Start Online Classes For Secondary, Higher Education

With the extension of the Lockdown period, the Yogi Adityanath government is all set to start online classes for secondary and higher education.

Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, who also holds the education portfolio, said directions were being issued to start online classes for students from class 9 to 12.

"Classes will be held through WhatsApp and other e-learning tools. For classes 6 to 9, we are drawing up an action plan. Education will also be given through the Diksha portal. We are also mulling the proposal of education through Doordarshan," he said.

Meanwhile, the Lucknow University is all set to start online classes for students.

At a meeting of department heads and vice-chancellor Professor Alok Kumar Rai via video conferencing, the professors said around 80-90 per cent of the curriculum of undergraduate and postgraduate courses has been completed and 45-50 per cent of the remaining part was done in online classes during lockdown.

Professor Rai said, "The university has effectively used online learning tools during lockdown. Now, we are developing an examination model for leveraging the use of IT in question paper setting."

Governor Anandiben Patel, the Chancellor of all state universities, has constituted a seven-member committee to give recommendations on holding online classes and examinations in the 2020-21 academic calendar in view of the disruption of studies and exams due to lockdown.

The committee is headed by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University vice-chancellor Professor Vinay Pathak.

The Lucknow University has also formed a panel to ascertain whether the university has the logistics to conduct online examinations or will it have to wait for the lockdown to be lifted. Another committee has been set up to assess the possibility of framing question papers in online and offline.

Meanwhile, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is already preparing to conduct online examinations, particularly for final year students.

Vice-chancellor Tariq Mansoor said the university will give priority to final year students and admission tests for various programmes, whose schedule will be finalized after discussions with concerned authorities.

In a letter addressed to AMU teachers, students, their parents and the AMU fraternity, the vice chancellor said that the union ministry of human resources development (MHRD), University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Government of India (GoI) has already constituted two expert committees to look into the matter.

"One of these committees has been constituted for matters for ''online teaching'' and ''online examination'', while the other is working to chalk out an ''academic calendar'' to deal with schedule of admissions and other issues," he said.

He added the report of these two expert committees are expected soon and decisions will be taken accordingly.

Teaching in the AMU has been disrupted since December - first due to the anti-CAA protests and then the Corona crisis.

Meanwhile, a number of private schools in the state have already started online classes.

Online sessions using tools like Google Hangouts, Skype and Zoom are being conducted and teachers and students have been asked to remain online during school hours.

A private school on Rae Bareli road has been conducting online classes since Monday (13 March) for classes 9 and 10.

Children in junior classes are being given work to do from home and have the option of contacting their teachers to resolve problems.

Virtual classes, however, are a problem for science students since experiments cannot be done online. Students are required to be physically present to understand the subject.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)