Chennai Corporation seeks NGO support to provide internet to students

Chennai

“As of now, we are conducting online classes for 80 minutes (two classes of 40 minutes each) every day. The time is limited as the free internet connection provided by most of the telecom firms is only 1.5GB. This data is only sufficient for 80-minutes of classes. To extend the session, we need more internet data for the students. All of them can not buy internet packages,” a Chennai Corporation official said.

The civic body commenced online classes for around 6,000 students, who are passing out from Class 9 to Class 10 and 5,000 students passing out from Class 11 to Class 12 on June 1. Of the 6,000 students in Class 10, smartphones have been provided to around 5,000 students. Another 1,000 students have smartphones of their own. Class 12 students are using the free laptop issued by the government. Schedules have been prepared for the entire month of June.

“We are waiting for support from NGOs so that students could get free internet connection. Meanwhile, some of our teachers are sponsoring the students with the connection. In a school in Kottur, teachers pooled in money to provide phones for 10 students,” he added.

Apart from online classes, the civic body has started a YouTube channel ‘GCC Education’ and is uploading videos of online classes.

Earlier, the civic body procured smartphones to conduct classes for the students who were about to write Class 10 board exams. After the exams were cancelled, the phones were handed over to students entering Class 10.