West Bengal begins live lectures on TV

Class 10 and 12 students to benefit

09/04/2020, BISHWANATH GHOSH,KOLKATA

Students will be given assignments that they can submit after school opens. GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKpijama61

West Bengal’s school education department has tied up with television channel ABP Ananda to hold live lectures for the students of Classes 10 and 12 to compensate for the classes they are missing due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

The lectures will be telecast daily from 3 p.m to 4 p.m. — with half an hour being devoted to students of Class 10 and the remaining to those belonging to Class 12 — and will continue till April 13. The televised classes began on Tuesday and the subject was English. The programme is aimed at students following the State board syllabus and, therefore, covers all schools run or aided by the State government.

“It is an excellent initiative by the State government and is a good way of keeping the students pepped up. How effective this is going to be will be seen in the coming days, but it is certainly better than doing nothing,” said Krishnakoli Ray, headmistress of Jaynagar Institution for Girls, a State government-aided school on the outskirts of Kolkata.

“But many State government-run and State government-aided schools happen to be in interior areas where there’s no dish antenna or cable, so students living in those areas may be missing out on the [televised classes], but this is a good start. Going forward, when villages are better connected, this could become the norm,” Ms. Ray said.

WhatsApp groups

In the event of the lockdown being extended, she said, schools are likely to form WhatsApp groups of Class 10 students to circulate worksheets so that they do not lag behind in preparing for their board exams.

The televised classes could be extended if the lockdown continues. They are being conducted by a panel of experienced teachers, who will also take questions from students on phone — there is a dedicated WhatsApp number — and on email. They will also assign tasks to students, who will submit the completed assignments to their respective teachers once the schools reopen.

The live classes were originally supposed to be telecast on Doordarshan, but according to sources, the arrangement did not work out.