A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court to forbear the Central and State governments from permitting private schools to conduct online classes until appropriate guidelines were framed for it under the Information Technology Act of 2000.
The petitioner, a mother of two children studying in classes IX and VI in Chennai, has claimed that students were being exposed to “immoral adult websites” due to pop ups that appear during the online classes and hence there was an imminent necessity to regulate the classes.
She also said that the conduct of online classes, to deal with the lockdown to fight COVID-19, had led to several structural imbalances between the rural and urban residents, rich and poor and the men and women since there was a vast difference between them in accessing technology.
“Only those who have the privilege of owning a smartphone or in some cases, more than one smartphone or computers, due to two or more children in the family, with a strong internet connection can access these classes,” an affidavit filed by her through advocate R. Krishnakumar read.
Further, claiming that teachers could not monitor the students effectively during such online classes, the petitioner said such classes were suitable only for self-motivated children who show the initiative to learn on their own and not for those dependent on faculty and peer interaction.