Private schools conduct online classes for kindergarten kids too

Coimbatore: The private school managements have decided to start online classes for students from June to cover the syllabus on time, even as they continue to wait for the state government to announce school reopening date and guidelines to be followed.
Meanwhile, to the shock of many parents, several schools in the district have sent timetable for the kindergarten and primary school students.
A parent, requesting anonymity, says she was taken aback when she received the message from the school saying online classes for her son, who is in second grade at kindergarten level, would resume from Monday.
Pointing out that he would have two one-hour sessions with a 30-minute break from 9.30am to 12 noon she said, “It is going to be really challenging to make him sit in front of laptop for such a long time as I also have to do my office work simultaneously.”
R Amritha, a parent of a Class III student, says her son’s half-day online classes will start from Wednesday. “I have to sit with him through the entire session to make him sit in front of laptop. At a time, when there is massive layoff at workplaces, how can I afford to spend the entire morning – the busiest time of the day – with my son? I can’t ignore him too and his studies are equally important for me. I will have to make some alternative arrangements to complete my work before his online sessions begin as we both share the same laptop.”
Apart from conducting classes, the schools are also providing students worksheets for an entire week and setting daily targets, says J Kannan, another parent of a kindergarten student. He says his son had been receiving worksheets and attending online classes ever since schools were closed following lockdown.
“It seems they are conducting online classes for kids for the only purpose of collecting fees. Days after the classes were made mandatory, the school management started asking us to pay a portion of school fees for the smooth conduct of classes. Left with no other option, we had to arrange money and pay the fees,” says Kannan.
R Vishalakshi, president, Tamil Nadu Private Matriculation Schools’ Association, says the call on conducting online classes is taken by each school independently.
Acknowledging it is difficult to conduct online classes for students in kindergarten and Classes I to III, she says the very idea is to keep them engaged and strengthen the bond between students and teachers. “For the students of higher classes, online classes are conducted to brush up the previous years’ syllabus and introduce the current year’s syllabus to them. Full-fledged classes could be conducted only after the schools reopen.”