Students, teachers welcome holidays for online classes

Coimbatore: Private school students and school representatives here welcomed the five-day break for online classes announced by the state government on Wednesday.
School education minister K A Sengottaiyan announced that the classes will not be held from September 21 to 25 to help students beat stress.
Private school students here said they attend three one-hour classes and also regular tests. “We have three sessions from10am to 11am, from 11.30am to 12.30pm, and from 3.30pm to 4.30pm. There are also internal exams every month. Five days of leave will help us unwind. But we have to prepare for the internal test next month,” said S Sree Vishnu, a Class XII student at a private school.
Representatives of private schools said online classes proved to be a supportive tool for them to cover portions, especially for Classes IX to XII. “We are engaging students in classes and also giving them homework, project work, assignments and tests, based on which we have mapped their performance. We are giving them leave on weekends, except for students of higher classes who might have half-day classes on Saturdays. If the state declares five-day holidays for students, it is fine with us. We think it is a good move, we will follow it,” said C S Manoharan, president of the CBSE Schools Management Association.
However, government schoolteachers said the short break would not have much impact on their students. Only those students who have connectivity are able to log in to the classes they have been conducting, a teacher said.
A Class III teacher said each of them are using different methods, such as Zoom meetings or sharing videos and PDF files in WhatsApp. “Not all students can get connected as not all homes have gadgets. So, the leave for online classes would not have much impact on government school students,” she said.