The coronavirus pandemic is showing no signs of abating. Faced with the unprecedented problems, innovative solutions are needed to trim down the impact it is ultimately going to have on all spheres of life. One of the important aspects involves teaching and learning, neither of which can wait if students are to envision a hopeful future.
In this endeavour, many schools have started online classes using various means of available media at a time when it seems that schools may have to remain shut for a longer period of time than initially anticipated.
The J&K education department has also taken initiatives and teachers are trying to tutor pupils through online media. There is also suggestion that parents needed to be encouraged to help their children with home-based learning.
It is both commendable and necessary, not least because it acknowledges the possibility that the pandemic has changed how students are educated around the world. It not only helps students in picking the thread of education at home but also helps them meet stiff targets of the syllabi.
However, all this is proving difficult for the students and teachers alike, irrespective of whether they belong to private or government institutions in Jammu and Kashmir. The internet speed is so slow that it is proving to be a hindrance. In the absence of the 4G services, the students are even unable to access the educational courses being sent by institutions in order to enable them to cope with the classes which they are missing.
This week, the government is supposed to file its reply before the Supreme Court in the PIL filed by the ‘Foundation for Media Professionals’, seeking restoration of the 4G internet in erstwhile state.
Also, the high court has sought a status report on this issue from the Secretary, Home Department of the Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh.
The government on the other hand, while extending the 4G ban till April 15 claimed that the low-speed internet posed no hindrance to COVID-19 control measures or to access online educational content.
“The internet speed restrictions have while enabling access to essential services and sites, not posed any hindrance to COVID-19 control measures or to access online educational content, but checked the unfettered misuse of social media for incitement and propagating /coordinating (militant) activities,” Principal Secretary to the Government Home department had said in an order issued on April 3. Without questioning the rational, the government needs to restore the 4G internet services without any further delay, at least to allow the education of the students, nation’s ultimate future, in these testing times.
