After months of having online classes instead of in-person attendance at schools, students appear to be less focused than they once were, teacher Suzan Syiem, who is also the Vice-President of the Khasi Jaintia Deficit School Teachers Association, has said.
“I have found that the students can no longer sit and focus in one place and they have become addicted to their mobile cells and are not paying attention. The pandemic has affected the students’ concentration and it will take a while to bring them back on track,” she told some reporters.
Online classes have other problems, as they are not accessible by students in rural areas where many parents cannot afford smartphones whereas those that can are still faced by lack of proper network coverage.
“As a teacher, I feel that I need to look at the faces of the children, whether they have understood the subject or not. Through online classes you will never know and we cannot claim to have almost completed the syllabus; I can say we have not even touched 30 percent of the syllabus online,” she added.
Expressing doubts on the possibility of online examinations, she said, “I teach English and I am surprised that the essays submitted by students are the best essays ever written because they have just googled them. Why should they get marks for those essays? I know it is not theirs and I don’t believe in the online exams.”
