Yet another indefinite phase of lockdown is pushing the valley students into yet another phase of anxiety as the class room teaching has once again gone into a suspension mode after the imposition of an unprecedented lockdown due to increasing fear of cornovirus spread in Kashmir like other parts of the country. Denying the internet access to students for more than seven long months for security reasons and restoring it to low speed 2 G facility in January this year has to end sometime inevitably with the restoration of 4 G internet facility. The growing public concerns on the launch of online teaching facilities offered by private schools in Kashmir should make the restoration of 4 G mobile internet facility a priority for the Government now. Since Google classrooms offered by private schools in Kashmir would be a tool for creating online classrooms and invite students to the classes for briefs and explanations on assignments, the students and teachers would get an opportunity of a direct interface with teachers from their homes. Undeniable fact is that conversations about the assignments with students give teachers an opportunity to track the student’s progress and as such the launch of google classrooms would be almost restoration of class room teaching in presence of the current phase of lockdown in Kashmir. Since Google Classroom encourages even participation of parents, teachers can invite parents to the Google classrooms to share summaries of student work and to receive automated email summaries of student work and class announcements. This online teaching learning process could be implemented by government run schools as well and more so for the purposes of accountability of teachers and upgradation of teaching standards.
With a tech savvy bureaucrat like Asghar Samoon controlling and commanding the school education department, the transition from offline class rooms teaching to google classes in lockdown times in not as difficult as it looks but his first challenge remains restoration of 4 G mobile internet services in Jammu & Kashmir.
Merely checking the attendance of teachers and putting them under suspensions for not reporting their duties in time is not the only way to check accountability of teachers but the implementation of google class rooms in government run schools in lockdown times could become the most effective tool for assessing the working and performance of teachers in classes. For improving the standards of teaching learning process the attendance of teachers is not as important as is the conduct of classless. The transition from offline class room teaching to online teaching learning process by creating google class rooms is not as difficult as it looks as common-sense and some basic technical knowledge makes the process very easy. Within no time the teachers in conversation with students streamline basic classroom operations and tasks, and spend more time on teaching. With a tech savvy bureaucrat like Asghar Samoon controlling and commanding the school education department, the transition from offline class rooms teaching to google classes in lockdown times in not as difficult as it looks but his first challenge remains restoration of 4 G mobile internet services in Jammu & Kashmir.