Andhra Pradesh logs onto online education amid COVID-19 lockdown

National

The Andhra Pradesh government has taken to online platforms to impart education in the times of COVID-19 and academics have braced up to the new medium with eagerness and enthusiasm. Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has also directed the officials to log into online courses. The state has been conducting virtual classes using the Skype, Cisco, Teamlink, Google Meet and Microsoft Team to conduct online classes.

In the times of lockdown, over 24,000 students and 933 teachers are taking part in the online classes. Lectures on various subjects are uploaded on YouTube and their links are being shared to enable those students to get the benefit, who do not have reach to online facility. Lecture notes are also being shared through WhatsApp and e-mail. Presently, 5979 classes have been organised covering various streams such as B. Tech, M. Tech, BA, MA, MCA and MBA among many others. Efforts are on to complete the pending syllabus and engage students in a productive manner during this time of lockdown.

At a higher level, Universities are encouraging students to get enrolled for free online courses from platforms like Udemy, Coursera, etc and utilise resources like MOOC, SWAYAM, and NPTL too. For school education, Doordarshan lessons are being conducted for tenth class students, which are broadcasted daily for two hours in the morning and evening. Radio lessons are also broadcasted daily. The State self-learning app named Abhyasa is also loaded with tenth class subject videos pooled from Dhiksha and are coupled with objective type question papers, which are posted for practise.

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The government plans to create a WhatsApp group at every school, which will include Teachers and tenth class students.
Important practice questions will be posted daily on the TV/Radio lessons in these WhatsApp groups, which students can answer from their home and send photos of the answer sheet, which can be evaluated and returned with feedback.

Webinar and pre recorded videos in SCERT YouTube channel on questions and answers, discussion and keywords for each and every important topic will also be available. On the same lines, online classes will be telecast, broadcast and also will be posted in WhatsApp groups for all the lower classes during the months of June and July.

A webinar series is organised from May 4 for all teachers and daily self assessment tests and notes are shared because of the new curriculum of the state.  Counselling sessions are also being provided by some universities with the support of their Psychology Department to cater to the needs of the students and the society at large, during these times to beat fatigue, despair and monotony. The phone numbers for the counselling are posted on the University website. As of now, Sri Padmavati Mahila Vishvavidalayam, Adikavi Nannaya and Yogi Vemana University are offering counselling.

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