Attempting, because the experience of online teaching during the past year has not been the best. For that matter, in the early part of the academic year it was quite bad and it may just have improved somewhat in the later months, but it still left much to be desired. So, when the current circumstances point to the online method of teaching continuing for another few months and not just a few weeks, is Goa prepared for it?
Have the connectivity issues that had arisen in the past months been sorted out? The experience of the last academic year with the online teaching method had thrown up the biggest issue of lack of connectivity in various parts of the State, especially in the rural areas. Last year, Team Herald had fanned out across the State to find out how students were coping with the online classes and connectivity had been the biggest issue that had surfaced. In rural areas students, with mobile phones in their hands, would gather at the spot in the village where connectivity was the best and follow the classes. For them, schooling was neither in the school nor in the home, but wherever in village they could get connected to the school to attend the online classes. Will this repeat this academic year?
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Of course, internet connectivity is not the concern of the Education Department or of the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. It is that of other government departments and of the service providers. Last year, when announcing online classes the Chief Minister had initially said they would not be compulsory, but later as there was no option but to complete the year via the online mode, the classes could no longer remain optional and students had to get connected. That is when the connectivity issues came into focus, leading to the government in August last year expediting the process to set up mobile towers.
After the notification of the Goa Infrastructure Telecom Policy 2020, Public Works Department cleared over 100 applications for installation of new mobile towers. Goa currently has over 1500 towers across the State and this is expected to improve connectivity across the length and breadth of the State. In January this year, the Goa government assured to install 62 new mobile towers so as to increase network connectivity. Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had also announced that 138 mobile towers will be set up that would ‘improve connectivity and benefit all sections of the society including students, IT professionals, tech start-ups’.
While the connectivity issues may have eased to some extent after the installation of more towers, the problems did continue and still exist. While the major dilemma would have been in the rural areas, bad connectivity has not been restricted to the villages but even students in urban areas have faced issues with this, which have got now amplified. Since the day Cyclone Tauktae lashed Goa last month, connectivity has worsened considerably. The mobile network coverage has also suffered considerably and a month after the cyclone blew over, the problems with mobile services persist. Given that a huge percentage of students use mobiles for their classes, this will affect the learning process should the connectivity be still bad.
There is time to get the connectivity issues sorted out as schools affiliated to Goa Board will be starting the academic year only later this month, but schools following the ICSE and CBSE syllabus will start before that. There is still time to improve the connectivity. Will the schools and the students get proper connectivity to take up the learning process?
