Odisha: Teachers gear up for 2 study modes

BHUBANESWAR:

Teachers

will have to manage the extra workload of offline as well as online studies after students of KG to VII resume physical classes from February 14. The offline classes from VIII and above resume on Monday.

The

state government

has allowed separate teaching periods — 10 am to 1 pm for classes I to VIII and 10 am to 4 pm for classes IX to XII. Some students may opt for online classes which have been also allowed by the government. Schools are working on timetables according to the timings.

Sai International School principal

Nilakantha Panigrahi

said the teachers have been provided special counselling sessions to deal with the workload of handling both offline and online classes. “We will focus on bridging the learning loss in the last 22 months. More lab classes will be conducted with integration of music and sports in the curriculum,” he added.

For the primary section, he said, offline classes will be conducted for three hours followed by online classes once the children reach home. “Focus will be more on activity based and experiential learning. Our primary school curriculum will continue with its pattern of student-centric and activity-based learning,” said Panigrahi.

Satyabrata Minaketan

, chairman of ODM Educational Group, said the physical mode of teaching yields good results for a student. “Though offline classes are allowed, a smaller number of students will attend them. Still, many of the students will opt for online mode. It will create a burden or work pressure on the teaching staff. They will handle both offline and online classes at a time and review their performances by dividing attention between two different groups,” he added.

Anuradha Rakshit

, principal of DPS

Kalinga

, Cuttack, said online classes along with offline classes will continue for all students simultaneously. “Teachers will have to put extra effort to manage these two modes of classes. They had done this in the past also,” she added.