Since March 22, over four months now, when the academic year in Goa came to abrupt end the State government is still doing the survey and repairing its infrastructure required for better network connectivity in the remote areas of the State.
Replying to the question raised by the Sanguem MLA Prasad Gaonkar on online classes, the Education Minister Dr Pramod Sawant has said in a written reply that the schools are permitted to conduct online classes with teachers conducting online classes either from schools or homes. “The steps taken by the Government: – 1.Training of Teachers. 2. TV /Radio, e- content is in process,” the reply states.
The government says the efforts to involve local bodies and other departments are on.
More importantly, the government is yet to complete a survey to find out how many students have access to the gadgets.
“The survey of students regarding connectivity and electronic gadgets is in process,” the education minister replied.
On the network connectivity, he says, In order to improve the existing network connectivity in Government Departments/ Corporations/ Schools/ Higher Secondaries/ Colleges, the Department of Information Technology has appointed an agency by floating a tender to repair/replace the faulty networking equipments and Optical Fiber Cable.
“The survey/inspection is being carried out to identify and fix faults thereby improving the network connectivity, The teachers are encouraged to explore innovative ideas to reach out to students either by way of worksheets home visits or any other mode if synchronous mode of online education is not possible on television channels,” he says.
Sawant further says that for training for Teachers, the Directorate of Education, SCERT and Goa Samara Shiksha in collaboration with Adhyayan Foundation conducted online training to train 406 Master trainers on use of online tools for online teaching.
“These Master trainers subsequently trained 11,119 teachers teaching in Primary, Secondary & Higher Secondary Schools. All the Government and Govt. Aided Schools teachers were trained online in three phases in the month of May & June 2020. Also 555 computer teachers were trained to work as Technical Facilitators during the training programme of teachers,” he says in his reply.
Further, the CM says apart from this 397 Special Educators and Resource Room teachers were also been trained for usage of online tools. Jio-Embibe training programme has been conducted for all Heads of Govt/Govt.Aided Institutions and Math’s & Science teachers for adaptive learning through Web-based technology solution and TV /Radio, e- content is in process.
“Transmitting and relay of subject wise lessons on Doordarshan & Local TV net works for Primary & Upper Primary students for their benefit those who do not have access for online mode of learning,” he adds.
Moreover, he adds, worksheets based on learning outcomes in all subjects of class 1 to 4 for 4 weeks has been prepared and same is being circulated to Govt primary schools to further distribute the hard copies to the parents of respective students.
Similarly, he says worksheets are uploaded in the SCERT website and DIKSHA portal for the benefits of aided and unaided schools’ students.
“Schools will prepare Continuous Learning Plan based on their school environment to ensure that every child is learning with different mode of learning tools. For Upper Primary students (a) Usage of different educational platforms like DIKSHA, e-Pathashala for learning different subjects systematically. (b) For Maths & Science adaptive learning through Jio-Embibe for class VI to X,” he explains.