Online programmes for students in Government schools

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, since the third week of March 2020, the entire Country is under lockdown. A few states have already extended schools lockdown up to June 2020 and remaining states may also follow the suit. Many states have promoted all the students in Grades I to VIII, IX, and XI to the next higher grade. Because of the long lockdown, a few states have started online classes to students in their respective states. It may be observed that of the total 250 million students across the country around 65+ percent alone are in schools managed by the Government managements. Needless to mention that Government schools are meant for those who cannot afford Private schools which is true for most of the states of the Country. It may be of interest to observe that only 19.66 percent of the total 1.5 million schools that impart school education in the country have computers in school against 9.25 percent schools having functional computers and another 6.45 percent schools having internet facility. Given the availability of computers in school, one can easily understand how many students would have got access to computers with the internet at home a few of them may have got access to the net through mobile phones. Because of the long lockouts states have come out with online programs that may not be of much use to students in the Government schools simply because of the lack of computer access. The HRM and institutions under MHRD, such as NCERT has come out with the list of online contents (already been available in the public domain) may actually of limited use. The deprived ones are again deprived, can we think of alternatives or they are left at their own to meant!!