Teachers in Chhattisgarh give offline classes to rural students, online classes on 'padhai tumhar dwar'

A web portal named ‘padhai tumhar dwar’ (class at your door) has been launched in Chhattisgarh to educate children amid the coronavirus-induced lockdown. Thousands of students and teachers of Narayanpur have registered themselves for the portal. Now teachers can guide students from their homes. For rural areas with no network connectivity teachers have begun off-line virtual class.

Narayanpur: Today, the whole world is wary of the threat posed by corona. In such a situation the academics and studies of every child are a topic of concern. Schools and colleges have been shut down, to minimize the impact of the pandemic on studies of school going students, online studies have been found as an option by the education department.

In the same vein, ‘padhai tumhar dwar’(class at your door) has been launched, it is an online portal which is being used for the education of children, but there are some areas deep in the forests that do not get proper network connectivity and the teachers in such areas have begun working on a new initiative. These teachers have begun off-line virtual class, which is giving the students a chance to learn.

Thousands of students and teachers of Narayanpur have registered themselves for the portal. Now teachers can guide students from their homes, the students too are making the best of this opportunity. Through this endeavour, the teachers of Chhattisgarh are no longer local to a school but have become famous all over the state.

As it is the students are getting the benefit of free online classes up to class X from class I. The catch in the system is at the point of network connectivity, the problem especially exists in rural and Naxal areas, where either the network received, is very weak, or non-existent.

Some teachers of the Narayanpur district seem to have found the answer to this conundrum in offline virtual classes. These teachers are operating these online virtual classes in Orchha block (considered gateway to Abujhmaar) at the Kurushnaar village as also in the villages Baasing, Kohamkota, and Kihkaad.

Classes from 1st to class 8th

The group consists of 10 teachers including Devashish Nath from Baansin, other teachers include Sarvashree Tijauram Usendi, Pradeep Kumar Shourie, Laxminath Dehari, Mangalram Salam, Chhattar Singh Bhoina, Kursoram Netam, Gudduraqam Korraam, Deepak Mandal and Roshan Kumar Thakur, who take turns to teach the students (from 1st to 8th) at different places.

Not only studies, but these teachers also arrange for breakfast for the students. The single aim is to ensure that no one is impeded from studying and there is no obstruction in the hope of a brighter future. These teachers are themselves greatly supporting the government in this initiative.

Health along with studies

Not only are these teachers imparting knowledge of their respective subjects, but they are also dispersing knowledge as regarding means and ways of safety from the coronavirus. Where a class is taken, the students’ hands are sanitized first, masks are then distributed among the students and social distancing is adopted, before class or studies begin, not only the studies of students but their breakfast and health have also been kept in mind.

The teaching goes on from 8 PM to 10 PM, for only two hours, during which Mathematics, Science, English and Hindi are taught. The initiative owes a large part of its success to the contribution and support of the District Administration, the District Education Officer (DEO) and the Block Education Officer (BEO) too.