Kerala: Truant power threatens to pull plug on e-classes

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as students, teachers and parents struggle to adapt to virtual classrooms necessitated by the lockdown brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, erratic power supply threatens to throw another spanner in the works.
One of the most frequent messages popping up on school WhatsApp groups, created by class teachers for coordinating classes, these days is about students missing classes due to power failure, either at their end or that of the teachers. High-school students are the main casualty of power outages as most schools following CBSE, ICSE syllabi conduct classes for long hours. While the state education department and most private schools provide students the option to access the recorded version of classes, a few schools are still reluctant to provide students with that option.
“Since online classes were started without much preparation, several students are suffering for want of enough good quality computer/mobile phone devices. Smartphones are not available in shops even if you are willing to pay Rs 10,000. My children manage classes with whatever equipment that was available at home before the lockdown. But now the biggest nightmare is that our internet modem could go off every time power supply fails. The same is true at the school end. The only solace is that my kids’ school offers the content offline as well, so that they can join the missing pieces of information at their own convenience,” said R Reshmi, mother of two children admitted to a CBSE school in the city.
Uninterrupted power supply will, most likely, continue to be a pipedream. KSEB officials say the board has enough and more power for distribution but that it is not in a position to guarantee seamless supply owing to reasons beyond their control.
“Kerala is a thickly vegetated place, and supply interruptions due to uprooting of trees and tree branches falling over power lines are common during the rainy season. We have not introduced any curbs, other than the inevitable ones for repair, maintenance and development work. In fact, the board has surrendered 65 MU of electricity we had contracted earlier. We are doing our best to ensure interruption-free supply, but to cope with voltage fluctuations and outages for short periods, consumers, especially those who attend online classes, may depend on power backup arrangements,” said KSEB chairman and managing director N S Pillai.