Free tabs received, but students yet to get SIM cards for e-classes

Gurgaon: Government school students in classes 10 and 12, who are yet to receive SIM cards for their tablets from the education department, are concerned about taking online remedial lessons from June 1 through these tablets.
“We have been informed that the online remedial classes will start from June 1 through these tablet devices. We don’t know how to use these devices. Even my family members don’t know. We need training and guidance from teachers before we can begin taking classes on tablets,” said Ankita Kumari, a student of Class 12 in Abhaypur Senior Secondary School.
The state education department started distributing the tablets among students in the first week of May under the e-Adhigam scheme. The state government scheme provides free tablets and activated SIM cards with 2GB of free data for nearly five lakh students across Haryana. The tablets have a Personalized Adaptive Learning and a Mobile Device Management System, which will limit their use to taking classes. In Gurgaon, over 25,000 students are eligible for the tablets, and the education department completed distributing the devices to them this week.
Now, teachers and students are demanding SIM card activation of the tablets at the earliest so the training on using the devices and accessing lessons can commence soon. “We are already receiving training on a host of uses of these tablets. We also need to make students adept with these devices as these, unlike other tablets, are only meant for lessons and live tracking. With less than ten days left for the remedial classes to begin, it will be difficult to train so many students for the smooth running of the classes,” said Balvinder Dhariwal, a government school teacher.
The education department said the distribution of sim cards would begin from Monday. “From Monday onwards, we will distribute the SIM cards. It won’t take long as the SIM cards have already reached the district office. We shall complete the exercise in a couple of days. Teachers and students will have enough time to get familiar with the tablets,” said an education department official.