Renowned school sacks few teachers for refusing to deliver e-lectures
Afaq Bhat
Srinagar, Apr 17: Ministry of Home Affairs issuing an advisory to avoid “ZOOM” meeting platform for official purposes has put the question mark over the fate of online classes being held through this internet application by various educational institutions, including schools and colleges.
The advisory issued by the MHA urges private users not to use personal meeting Id (PMI) to host event. “Instead use randomly generated meeting IDs for each event. Don’t share your link on public platform, instead share randomly generated meeting ID and password for every new meeting session/schedule. It makes it much secure and difficult to leak. If you are admin, remember to end meeting, don’t just leave meeting,” reads the advisory.
It’s in place to mention here that many educational institutions in Kashmir are using “ZOOM” meeting platform to deliver lectures online to make the students to study at home.
Reacting to the MHA advisory on “ZOOM”, chairman of Private Schools Association of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Var said, “The ZOOM has been banned mainly for official meetings and the main reason is its routing of traffic through China. Many of our schools have invested heavily in different professional educational softwares, which are both secure and compatible for classes, but that needs high speed 4G internet and government is in no mood to give that to us. We even went to Supreme Court for restoration of 4G but still nothing is happening. It seems government is playing with the career of lakhs of students.”
He requested the teachers and the students not to worry and carry on with their online cases by generating instant IDs and passwords.
An analyst while talking to Precious Kashmir said, “The MHA advisory has led to many teachers expressing their reservations to use this application.”
In a related development a renowned private school in Kashmir sacked few teachers after they refused to use the application to deliver the lectures.
The analyst said, “The school management taking such a harsh decision has created insecurity among the members of the teaching fraternity, especially those who are working in private sector. The school instead of sacking these teachers should make them understand the importance of e-classes during the present crisis.”
The analyst said, “If the 4G internet services are restored in Jammu and Kashmir many online applications, which are safer than “ZOOM” can work. Teachers can easily deliver their lectures through these safer applications.”
An observer said that number of COVID-19 positive cases increasing with each passing day seems to be an indication that we are out to fight a long-drawn battle and educational institutions are likely to remain closed for longer duration. “Only way to keep our children busy is through online classes. Let’s not put a question mark on it,” he added.
