Akhila Damodaran

The Karnataka government has issued an order permitting online classes for students from LKG to class 10 until the expert committee submits its final report. The blanket ban by the state was followed by several protests by parents and educators and also intervention of High Court. 

The order issued by the government on Saturday states certain guidelines for online classes. It suggests half hour of online class per week for preschool students under the supervision of parents and two online classes on alternate days for classes 1 to 5. The students of classes 6 to 8 will have two classes per day for five days in a week and classes 9 and 10 will have four classes a day for five days a week. Each class will be of 30 to 45 minutes duration. 

In its interim order, valid until the state government issues guidelines based on the report submitted by its expert committee, the Karnataka government stated that it had decided to suspend online education for primary classes after it received several complaints about they being conducted in unscientific ways. The government then formed the expert committee to prepare guidelines for the scientific adoption of online classes. The committee has already conducted two meetings in this regard. A couple of days ago, the High Court of Karnataka had also directed government to reconsider its decision of banning online classes for primary section. As the Court provided limited period of time, the government then decided to permit online education as suggested by the Union HRD Ministry. The Union ministry has directed all schools, irrespective of boards, to conduct online classes from LKG to Class XII as per the digitalisation guidelines. 

The government has further stated that there should be no additional charge for online education and the cost of online classes will be included in the regular annual tuition fee.

The #RighttoLearn, an informal group of schools in support of online education that had also conducted the twitter-protest against the blanket ban by the government, has released white paper to explore suitable, desirable and feasible options for online schooling for their children.

Read: #RightToLearn: Parents appeal to governments to revoke ban on online learning