Volunteers conduct classes over the phone for children who lack access to internet, smartphones - Hindustan Times
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Volunteers conduct classes over the phone for children who lack access to internet, smartphones

ByRohit David, Gurugram
May 25, 2020 11:01 PM IST

A group of volunteers in the city are teaching government school children through one-on-one classes on a range of subjects, including mathematics, English and Hindi over the landline. These volunteers have taken up this initiative to make sure that children who are not able to access the internet or do not have a smart phone can still make use of the e-learning curriculum published by the state education department since April onwards.

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Shivnath Sharma, who works as a carpenter in Chakkarpur, said that had this initiative not been there then his kids would not have even touched books. “I have two small kids and both of them are being taught via phone by the volunteers. My wife is not educated and I can’t afford either a smart phone or a laptop. If the volunteers had not contacted us, then my kids would never have been able to study during the lockdown,” said Sharma.

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On April 16, to prevent the loss of academic sessions during Covid-19 lockdown, the Haryana government decided to teach students from classes 1-12 through various e-learning platforms. According to the school education department of government of Haryana, around 71% government school children in the city are availing e-learning initiative.

According to an estimate, at least 29% of the students in the city are still not able to access online education. As such, these volunteers with the help of education department have zeroed down on such students and have started conducting classes over the phone.

Viren Jain, a high school student in the city who founded the Volunteer for Change programme, put together a core team, involving two of his friends, Krishnav Verma and Aryan Chopra, and a host of other enthusiastic volunteers, who came up with the idea to teach government school kids over the phone.

Following an approval from the directorate of education, Haryana, these volunteers have started working with three government schools in Gurugram. “During the lockdown period, for around a month, nothing really happened for government school children. Also when e-learning started, there were many students who didn’t have access to e-learning. So we came up with this concept to teach children through the phone,” said Jain. Today there are 200 volunteers who are a part of this project, which started in the first week of May.

The district education department (DEO) of Gurugram, Indu Boken, said that this is a wonderful initiative undertaken by the volunteer group. “They are carrying out activity-based learning. Most of it is happening in the primary and the elementary sections. It’s really great for the children,” said Boken.

However, volunteers say it has never been an easy ride for them. The first challenge was to strike the right chord with the children and win their trust so that they become friendly and share their difficulties.

Rishabh Ratnu, who has been teaching a primary school kid, said, “The first few calls helped me to get comfortable with the student whom I was going to teach. The first thing she said was, “We have kept roza (fast). Have you also done so?” I politely replied: “I haven’t, but for you I can keep it.” Ratnu started teaching mathematics to the student, who belong to a primary class. He even made audio programmes for her to learn the concept of the subject well.

Most of the volunteers take classes on the phone thrice in a week for around 40 minutes. Indrani Sen, a volunteer who has been teaching a government school student in the city said, “The class would normally be of 40 minutes or an hour depending on how well the student has understood the subject. I even ask my student to make worksheets and inform me if he fails to grasp a concept.”

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