Page 65 - EW August 2021

hand over worksheets and notes. But destinations for two weeks teaching
visiting children in village homes in- children. Residential accommoda-
volves trekking through dense forest tion is primitive. All of us live in one
because otherwise, they won’t learn room without electricity.
anything at all. Once schools reopen,
we will have to introduce intensive Inevitably, there’s considerable loss of
remedial and bridge programmes. learning. What programmes have you
introduced to minimise learning loss of
What are your plans to deal with future children?
pandemic disruptions? We teach a very special group of
If the pandemic continues, we will students in their homes. They speak
have to strengthen our online and tribal languages that don’t have
offline learning models. We will also scripts. For them, the state’s lan-
need to visit children at home more guage Malayalam is foreign. We have
frequently to minimise learning loss. to make special efforts to first teach
Our priority is to keep students inter- them Malayalam and then explain
ested in learning and prevent them concepts. Therefore, learning loss is
from dropping out of education. very high. The only option we have is
In far-flung areas where Covid-19 to conduct in-person classes when-
positive cases are rare, government connectivity. So how do you ensure your ever possible. When teachers meet
should allow schools to reopen im- children’s learning continuity during the students in their homes, we not only
mediately to prevent any further pandemic? have to teach them new concepts but
damage to children’s education. Our students come from 26 tribal continuously revise what was previ-
settlements of whom only three have ously taught.
electricity. Hence, there is no ques-
Vasudevan Pillai tion of online education. Moreover, What are your future plans to deal with
the sole transmission tower was pandemic disruptions?
Headmaster, Government Tribal knocked down by wild elephants I urge the state government to allow
Lower Primary School, Munnar recently and locals have no mobile us to restart in-person classes for all
(Kerala) network either. children immediately. All our teach-
Therefore, the only option is in- ers are vaccinated and we have sensi-
asudevan Pillai is headmaster person classes. Our children come tised students about Covid-19 norms
of the Government Tribal in batches for a few days per month — wearing masks and maintaining
VLower Primary School, Eda- and observe strict distancing norms. social distance. Our school was given
malakkudy (Kerala), set deep within But many children cannot come to permission to resume in-person
the forest reserves of Munnar district the school. Therefore, our teach- classes in June as the village had not
(pop.1.09 million). This class I-IV ers trek 14 km for almost six hours reported any cases of Covid-19 ever
school hosts 67 students mentored to reach students’ homes in their since the pandemic began. But after
by four teachers.
remote settlements every month. that two cases were reported in early
Unsurprisingly, your school lacks Internet Once there, our teachers live at July and the school was shut down.

AUGUST 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 65