-Reshma Ravishanker
The department of primary and secondary education will set up a task force to assess the situation for commencement of offline classes for students in rural areas, minister for primary and secondary education, S Suresh Kumar said.
He addressed the media in Bengaluru on Monday. Kumar said that one of the important discussions that have been had in the recent past is that the department should be no discontinuation of learning for children in rural areas. There is a demand to start Vidyagama 2 on lines of last year’s Vidyagama programme to reach out to children.
Subject experts, technical advisory committee members and child rights experts would be involved as part of the task force. An order would be issued to constitute the committee in two days, the minister added.
“There are complaints that a lot of children are becoming victims of child labour or child marriage as there are no in-person classes. I have also heard from experts that some children have forgotten to even talk and write what was being previously taught. We have taken all this into account,” Kumar said.
The education minister said that he held a meeting with experts in the field of education on June 25 and discussed these issues. Dr Devi Shetty’s committee report on the occurrence of the third wave of the pandemic has been taken into account. He said that experts have suggested that priority must be to ensure that children in rural areas must not be left behind.
“We are looking at taking a decision depending on the situation in each of the districts. The task force will also look into the same,” he said.
However, minister for health and family welfare, Dr K Sudhakar who sought to know the need for another task force said that he was unaware of any collaborations with the health department or the government’s technical advisory committee to set up a task force for the education department.
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