With little possibility of schools reopening from the current academic session, the Odisha government plans to live stream virtual teaching sessions for all classes on YouTube from June 21. Offline classes have been suspended since March 2020 due to the Covid pandemic outbreak.
State project director of Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) Bhupendra Singh Poonia has asked 13 of the 30 district education officers to arrange two classrooms, preferably in centre of excellence schools/ transformation high schools or in schools located near the district headquarter towns, for YouTube live streaming of virtual classes. The trial run has to be over by June 17, Poonia has ordered.
The districts where virtual classes will be held for live streaming are Khordha, Balangir, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Ganjam, Koraput Puri, Dhenkanal, Sundargarh, Nayagarh, Bhadrak, Balasore and Sambalpur.
Poonia said students will be able to put up questions for subject teachers during the live sessions and those will be addressed immediately after the session is over, in a time slot allotted for an interactive question-answer session.
Specifying the minimum requirements for holding such classes, Poonia said, “There should be sufficient light in the room with special lights or halogen for video recording. Rooms should have AC 9 (air conditioner) or at least ceiling fans. A white board (preferably of size 5×4 ft) with marker pens and a stand for the whiteboard and a flex banner of 6×4 ft size with uniform print matter are needed.”
{{/usCountry}}Specifying the minimum requirements for holding such classes, Poonia said, “There should be sufficient light in the room with special lights or halogen for video recording. Rooms should have AC 9 (air conditioner) or at least ceiling fans. A white board (preferably of size 5×4 ft) with marker pens and a stand for the whiteboard and a flex banner of 6×4 ft size with uniform print matter are needed.”
{{/usCountry}}The other requirements include a modern desktop/laptop, two cameras, recording cards, wireless lapel microphone and a camera stand or tripod.
The decision to try the YouTube live streaming option comes a year after a combination of WhatsApp, Google Meet, Zoom and Skype were used for online learning. Study materials, contents of different subjects as well as written notes were shared on WhatsApp for students of Class II to X. The Odisha School Education Programme Authority also telecast video lessons for Class X on DD Odia TV channel.
However, experts question if the initiative will reach hundreds of thousands of students without access to the internet, laptops or smartphones. As per government statistics, of the 67,128 government elementary schools in the state, only 27.68% have initiated online education so far.
“More than 80% students in the state-run schools cannot afford smartphones and computers. How would the YouTube live streaming reach them is a big question. This disparity and inequality in imparting online classes may have long-term implications,” said Ruchi Kashyap, executive trustee at Atmashakti Trust, an NGO that conducted a State-wide study among students last year and found the number of children who attend online classes through a smartphone was 31.95%.