Students In Haryana Village Forced To Walk For Miles To Access Smartphone For Online Classes
In the village, the majority of the population doesn't have smartphones and faces interrupted networks due which students have had to walk miles to gain access.
Students who come from less privileged backgrounds have found it extremely difficult to keep up with online classes. Even as students in cities and towns across the country attend classes online, rural areas continue to grapple with the new system due to unsteady connectivity and lack of devices such as smartphones and computers.
Several students in the remote Morni village, in Badisher, are forced to walk miles to access a smartphone.
Indian Express
In the village, the majority of the population doesn't have smartphones and face interrupted networks, which forces the kids to walk to a house where they can access online classes.
According to The Indian Express, Karamjeet and his two sisters have had to walk to Rinku's house, one of the village boys who possess a smartphone, where they take turns to take down notes from the videos teachers sent to Rinku's phone.
The report states that Karamjeet who works as a farmer couldn't afford a smartphone and had no option but to send the kids to the village boy's house who has a smartphone.
¡°I had some savings but due to the lockdown, all of them were spent on survival only. Now, I am planning that the production of tomatoes is sold by a month. With that money, I will purchase a smartphone for the kids, so that they don't have to travel so much to access a smartphone,¡± said Om Prakash.
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¡°I just use this simple phone but it is not of any use to kids. So, till the time the sale of tomatoes takes place, I am sending kids to the house of the boy who has a smartphone. We had never thought that studies will be done only on touch phone,¡± he added.
Image For Representation/The Hindu
From the same village, Bhawna, Mamta, Kulwanti, and Deepak, students of classes X, VIII and VI respectively, from a government school in Koti also travel to Amri Devi, a relative's place, to access a smartphone.
"In the evening, all of them have to work in the farm. So, during the afternoon, they all come with their notebooks and copy from the notes sent by the teacher and the lesson videos on my phone. It is a struggle, but that is the only way to learn things. Since April, the classes have been in online mode," said Devi, a college student of Government Polytechnic college, Morni. The kids go to Devi's place after she's done with her online classes.
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She added that since there are no WiFi facilities, the recharge is yet another problem they face. Meanwhile, Pawan Jain, Principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Koti, said that nearly 20 per cent of the total 190 students from his school do not have a smartphone.
Reuters
"Till now, they have just been jotting down notes by going to different houses to access a smart phone. But network and recharge are also a problem, their internet data pack finishes in four-five days. We have registered these phones numbers in our groups from where these students study," he said.
With the imposition of lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic, schools across the country have been transitioning to online learning. In June this year, an 11-year-old boy from Kerala gave up his birthday gift to buy TVs and tablets for underprivileged kids.