Schools are closed for students since the start of the academic year owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, but in Thirupuram grama panchayat’s IHDP Hall under the Neyyattinkara block resource centre, they have been attending the State government’s digital classes every day for months now.
These students, living in a colony, do not have television sets at home or individual phones and they watch the classes on a television donated by a government officials’ union.
Any related academic activities are completed there itself and sent to the teachers concerned with the support of Meenu J.S., an education volunteer appointed by the Samagra Shiksha, Kerala.
673 resource centres
Like the Thirupuram grama panchayat’s IHDP Hall, Samagra is operating 673 local resource centres across the State since September in areas where socially and economically backward families live.
Children come to the resource centres where the education volunteers provide them learning support.
C. Radhakrishnan, State Programme Officer (Innovations), Samagra Shiksha, Kerala, says that educational and social backwardness of these families is reflected in their children’s education. Arithmetic, languages, reading, and writing are areas where the children may not fare well.
Moreover, online classes cater to a broad segment of students, but are not enough to attend to individual requirements.
Students from these sections often require additional support for proper comprehension of the online classes.
The Samagra’s intervention through these local resource centres is tailored to address their academic backwardness.
One batch attending the resource centres comprises a maximum of 10 students. If there are more students, they are grouped into separate batches and come to the local resource centres on different days.
In areas where students lack facilities to watch the online classes at home, televisions are provided at these centres, such as in Thirupuram panchayat’s IHDP hall. Some local study centres have also been converted into resource centres.
Different ages
Ms. Meenu helps out eight students of different ages. While the younger students do not face any problems in understanding the online classes, those in Classes 8 and 9 require additional support, mostly in subjects such as Science, Mathematics, and Social Science.
At times, it is because the classes are in Malayalam, while her students attend English medium in school, she says.
Besides educational volunteers, cluster resource coordinators support these students as also teachers from nearby schools wherever possible.
Samagra’s special teachers for art and craft and sports also visit these centres so that not only students’ academics, but their physical fitness and other talents also improve.
