NT NETWORK
Panaji
Admitting that online education is not accessible to every student in the state, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Thursday said there is no immediate plan to start physical classes for schools and college students and went on to add that government will take the decision only by following guidelines issued by the Centre.
“I am fully aware that online education is not 100 per cent successful. At present, we are not giving any thought to commencing physical classes. We will go ahead only when guidelines are issued by the Centre and by consulting ICMR,” Sawant said, while responding during the calling attention motion moved by opposition MLAs on non-availability of infrastructure for internet connectivityto attend online classes.
Sawant said that government will consider providing “gadgets” to students belonging to low-income groups.
He further said that government will also try setting up fully equipped computer labs in some of the schools.
Chief Minister informed the House that government has cleared 145 applications that were received seeking permission for setting up mobile towers across the state, adding that, at present setting up of 60-70 towers is on.
“Government decided to provide WiFi connectivity in 6 remote village panchayats (VGPs) through Goa Broadband Network (GBBN). GBBN was old but still the government network was opened for people, especially students to utilise it to assess the online educational services,” Sawant said.
He further clarified that providing WiFi using GBBN at all 191 village panchayat level was not feasible.
In his written reply, he stated that 11,119 teachers teaching in primary, secondary and higher secondary schools were trained on use of online tools for online teaching and learning.
Sawant said that in order to provide access to the academic content pertaining to the course syllabus of UG Programmes, the DHE has developed an online web portal ‘Dishtavo’, which gives round-the-clock access irrespective of the geographic location.
At present, 13,618 videos are recorded and 11,491 videos are uploaded on the particular portal, he claimed.
Sawant further said that almost 70 per cent of the syllabus of the odd semester is covered under the Dishtavo project and 80 per cent of the syllabus of even semester is covered under the same.
Chief Minister claimed that the schools are following various alternative communication methods like worksheets, WhatsApp and meeting with parents and students by the teachers in order to maintain continuous learning of the students.
Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat asked the government to consider coming out with academic action plan by taking all the stakeholders into confidence as a stopgap arrangement so as to ensure that students are not deprived of education till the online classes are made accessible to everyone or till physical classes are resumed after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro demanded government to constitute a five-member committee and ask it to come out with a roadmap and action plan on education within a week.
Marcaim MLA Ramakrishna alias Sudin Dhavalikar demanded government to immediately suspend the online classes as poor students were not able to access it.
Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte asked the government to re-introduce cyberage scheme and if government is not interested in giving laptops to students then it should provide either smartphones or tablets to students.
Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai pointed out that the government’s claim of “free education” is just a slogan and not a reality.
He said that there are a quite sizeable students who are from economically backward sections and they cannot afford a smartphone for online classes.