Porvorim MLA and former IT Minister Rohan Khaunte on Monday slammed the government for failing to create infrastructure for online classes even five months after academic year was abruptly ended due to COVID19.
“In five months we are still thinking what and how to go about the online classes,” said Khaunte while speaking in the Question Hour on the floor of the House.
He said that when the government speaks about equality in education has the government carried out a survey to find out whether how many students have the infrastructure?
“When I was the IT minister, we had done a survey and found that 25 p.c people in Goa do not have a smart phone and moreover, 10 p.c of parents cannot afford a second and give their phones to children in the evening only. This study is not of today but last year,” Khaunte said.
He said during his tenure as the minister the department was trying to give fibre to the home and also create wi-fi hotspots.
“We were trying to create infrastructure in schools. But today we see students wearing raincoats and attending online classes. Digital learning has to be accepted but here we get an answer to MLA Prasad Gaonkar’s question that there is no infrastructure available,” he said.
He said the student today has to go through immense stress as first they do not have infrastructure, secondly schools are collecting fees for online classes and third the circulars by Department of Education is confusing.
“The circular says the digital learning to be done now and once COVID is over the teacher has to teach the same syllabus all over again. Is this time pass? Now should students take the classes seriously or not?” he asked.
He said the Government has totally failed to provide infrastructure.
“We had enough time of five months but we did nothing,” he said.
