In an exclusive interaction with The Quint’s Editorial Director Sanjay Pugalia, former Human Resource Development Minister and Congress Member of Parliament Kapil Sibal said all students must be automatically promoted to the next level as the country does not have the required system in place to ensure online learning for all.
Referring to the Bharat Net project, Sibal said since the target to connect over 2,50,000 gram panchayats with fiber-optic connection is still incomplete, the lack of last-mile connectivity to schools in villages prevents knowledge and education from reaching the students in far corners of the country.
“Students have got exams and classes are not taking place. All students should be automatically promoted to the next class so that they don’t waste a year and you can take extra classes to cover for the previous class and the loss of time in previous year.”
While maintaining that online classes can only work in certain parts of the country and for certain institutions, Sibal pointed out that these virtual classes are not interactive and may not be easy to grasp for students who are used to learning with their peers in a classroom environment. Further, the skewed teacher-student ratio and the inability of many to teach online are hurdles in the process of online learning, he added.
If you try and do online teaching, students don’t understand. They ultimately fail. What do you do then? For no fault of the student?
