New Delhi, June 18, 2020: Solar panels will be set up in unelectrified tribal settlements in the eastern suburbs of the district for ensuring seamless access to online education for students there.
The District Education Department is trying to solicit sponsorship for setting up as much panels as possible.
Currently, volunteers trained under the Samagra Shiksha Kerala in association with the Scheduled Tribes Development Department are reaching out to students in tribal settlements after getting laptops charged from the nearest centres with power connectivity, which is an arduous task.
“The idea is to set up solar panels in public spaces like anganwadis near to the settlements,” said Honey G. Alexander, Deputy Director of Education, Ernakulam.
This is one of the many initiatives being adopted by the department to ensure universal accessibility to online education.
Individual accessibility
Having claimed to have covered the student community as a group, the authorities are now focusing on enhancing individual accessibility to online education.
As per an initial estimate, about 7,000 students out of the 2.62 lakh students in the district didn’t have access to online classes either owing to lack of smart phones or television sets.
“We covered all of them by this week through multiple modes, including 89 community study centres, by arranging television sets in easily accessible public spaces like libraries and anganwadis. We are now planning to increase the number of such centres depending on the availability of television sets,” said Ms. Alexander.
Around 300 students who were found to be outside the ambit of such centres were being personally visited by teachers with downloaded lessons once in two or three days according to the reports published in thehindu.com.
Another 500 students were given laptops belonging to schools while some others with data connectivity issues were given lessons in pen drives.
“We are expecting donation of around 200 television sets shortly, in which case we plan to distribute them to the most needy among the 250-odd students who are now dependent on their neighbours for access to television,” said Ms. Alexander.
