Schools in Pune’s Indapur Zilla Parishad go fully digital, other talukas to follow suit

Like lakhs of students in the country, for over 20,000 students studying at the 373-odd Zilla Parishad-run schools in Pune district’s Indapur taluka, the whole of the present academic year was marked by a lack of physical classes. Rising to the occasion was a team of 38 teachers, who took on themselves to digitalise the entire curriculum for their students and ensure they do not miss out on education, while being away from school.

The pandemic and the lockdown have seen the mushrooming of online teaching modules. Schools outsourced their teaching modules to content creators who rolled out made-to-order capsules for their students.

Private schools have invested heavily in such modules, which would otherwise be hard to get for common students. R R Bamne, education officer of Indapur, said for students in zilla parishad schools, such modules would be out of reach due to heavy costs.

As the lockdown went on, the need to create digital content for students of zilla parishad schools was felt. From 1,000-odd teachers in zilla parishad schools in the taluka, 38 were selected to churn out such content. “Their brief was simple- make short videos to cover the syllabus from Classes I to IV,” he said.

Teachers set to work and soon produced 2,500 videos to cover the entire syllabus, which were uploaded on their YouTube channel- Indapur Learn from Home.

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At the end of the academic year, the channel now has 24,800 subscribers and has generated over 1.15 lakh views. The short videos cover the syllabi, which have been made in software that is available online. Teachers have provided voice-overs and covered the syllabus as they would have done in physical classes.

Bamne said the online modules allowed the teachers to conduct online tests for their students. While Class I students were exempted from tests, the remaining students were made to take tests online tests 26 times.

“We have collected 2.15 lakh responses from the students- around 10-11,000 students had taken tests online,” he said. The online module, Bamne said, allowed them to ensure their students do not falter in their learning.

Going a step forward, the modules have been embedded into QR codes which would allow them to be downloaded anywhere. Ayush Prasad, the CEO of Pune Zilla Parishad said they are developing an app which will make online learning more systematic. “If physical classes do not take place in the upcoming academic year, our students will not face any problems,” he said.