Ludhiana: Smartphone gifted by DEO comes in handy for Class 10 student

The meritorious student was not able to continue with her studies online due to lack of a smartphone

Fifteen-year-old Manvi Dholan was overjoyed after she was able to continue with her studies online with the help of a smartphone with internet facility gifted by the district education officer (DEO), secondary, Swaranjit Kaur, on Sunday.

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Class 10 student of Government High School, Dholan, Jagraon, Manvi, had not been able to reply for the past two weeks in the WhatsApp group, formed by the district mathematics mentor for the 81 meritorious students, who had scored above 93% marks in the pre-board examinations held in January.

The group was formed to check the progress of students in the tests and provide proper guidance to improve the performance of students in the final board exams.

To know the reason for not responding to the group, the mentor inquired from Malvi, to which the girl told him that she did not have a smartphone.

Manvi, said, “In the absence of a smartphone, I was not able to reply to the messages sent in the group regularly. I, sometimes, used my cousin’s mobile to reply, but it was not regular. I shared this issue with my teachers and yesterday block mentor of mathematics Bhupinder Singh handed over a smartphone, which was sent by the district education officer. I am grateful to the authorities as, by using this gadget, I am able to improve my performance under the guidance of subject experts.”

She added, “Since March 23, I had been studying the previous year’s papers, but felt that I needed proper guidance to enhance my performance. Now, I am part of the WhatsApp group and will practice according to the tests sent by the mentors. Today, three-mark questions of science were sent on the group and, in English, short-answer questions have been sent for practice.”

Amid lockdown due to the spread of coronavirus, the mentors started sending daily tests to Class 10 students through WhatsApp group.

These 81 students have scored more than 93% marks in the pre-board exams and district mentor of mathematics Sanjeev Taneja monitored the progress of these students from where he observed that Manvi was not responding to the messages sent in the group.

He said, “She scored 99% marks in the pre-board exams held in January. She scored 100% marks in mathematics and Hindi in pre-board exams and was just short of six marks from the total 555 marks. So, we traced the student and now she is able to practise the tests under the guidance of all subject mentors. I informed the DEO regarding this problem and she immediately arranged a phone and asked the block mentor of Jagraon to hand over the smartphone to the student.”