Korba (Chhattisgarh): With urban schools venturing into online classes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, school teachers of two villages in Chhattisgarh have taken up an innovative initiative of teaching the students of tribal, rural and backward regions, who can barely afford a smartphone or internet.
Amidst all the problems, children from standard 1 to 5th are being educated in these villages, Gahaniyan and Khetarpara, which are about 35 to 40 km from Korba town.
The classes are taken by the school teachers under the open sky, in community halls of the villages, temple premises and even under the trees.
Lovingly called by the locals as 'Mohalla schools', these open classes started during Unlock-1 in the first week of June and make sure to maintain social distancing, use hand sanitizers, soap and water.
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Open fields and community halls are chosen to make social distancing possible as there is a huge spurt in the number of COVID-19 cases in the state.
Speaking to ETV Bharat, teacher Seeta Bhagat said, "Mostly tribal students were forgetting what they had studied during the three-month-long lockdown. The help arrived from the villagers and they were proactive in sending their children to us. We are taking the classes in the open field and maintaining social distancing.
"Now 19-25 students are coming every day. Masks are given to the students. With the eagerness of the parents to send their children for learning, altogether 40 teachers of different schools have come out and have participated in these open schools in several places in these villages." Bhagat said.
The concept of these "Mohalla schools" are becoming popular in other parts of the state as well.
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Asha Singh, another school teacher of Korba, told ETV Bharat, "After the lockdown was over, we started visiting the house of the students and asked their parents to send their children to these Mohalla schools. Due to the rainy season, we are also facing difficulties but the students here said that they are getting benefited from such kind of education."
"The situation is so grim that even those who have a phone, do not have the money to recharge the Internet service plan. At some places, poor students are constrained to study by borrowing phones from others. But this initiative has helped the students in the tribal region like Korba. We have appointed some youth education volunteers in these villages so that children can get some help in their education. Sometimes the education volunteers are also teaching the children," Singh said.
