Government Intermediate College Taus begins online classes
By Gul Nayab
Government College Taus in Yasin, Ghizer District, has started online lectures for the students to compensate them of the academic loss due to closure of colleges and universities following Coronavirus lockdown.
The students are asked to join the classes through the official Whatsapp group and the Youtube channel Al-Chemist (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkPTWlCxpmSci5tUK6gJYgw ), launched for the process of online learning.
However, the students have questioned the viability and utility of the online classes considering the poor internet service in the region and other necessities.
Like other parts of the district, people of Yasin are unable to get balance cards and easy load due to strict lockdown in the region.
Furthermore, there is no availability of Witribe service in the valley.
The poor SCom service and slow speed of the internet are getting on the nerves of the users. Except for some parts of Barkolti, most of the valleys including Darkut, Sandi, Qurqalti, Gojalti, Nazbar, Murka, Sumal, Gindai etc have a very poor internet facility.
A number of worried students from these areas while speaking to High Asia Herald expressed concerns about the loss of their course credit hours and academic future.
They questioned the utility of online classes and termed it a futile exercise and demanded the college administration to come up with an alternative viable option.
Prime Minister Imran Khan last week inaugurated a national broadcast education channel to mitigate the problems faced by the students due to the closure of educational institutions till May 31 in the wake of lockdown following coronavirus pandemic.
Teleschool — the dedicated TV channel — has been airing through a beam provided by PTV across the country from 8am to 6pm for online education from class one to 12.
The channel has been developed by the Ministry of Federal Education and Technical Training in collaboration with the PTV and the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) with additional input from several non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
The Higher Education Commission had also asked universities to start online classes. This prompted a strong protest on social media from the students and parents leading to the cancellation of such online by many universities while some are still giving online lectures.
The major objections were the availability of internet service and online teaching style which were not helping students to comprehend the lectures.