HC to TN: Spell stand on online classes in a week

A division bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha passed the direction following a submission from the Centre about the recently issued guidelines on the timings of online classes. The Centre had said that the period of a class would be 30 minutes a day for kindergarten children while for students in Classes 1 to 8 would have two sessions of 45 minutes each and 4 such 45-minute sessions for students in Classes 9 to 12.

The bench was hearing a batch of pleas against online classes in the absence of State government guidelines. The other aspects raised included the ample scope of students getting distracted by obscene pop-up advertisements while they are exposed to screen and digital gadgets. One of the pleas also sought to ban online classes for students of Classes 1 to 5 and restrict the class timings for students of Classes 6 to 12 to just two hours a day.

Senior Counsel J Ravindran appearing for one of the petitioners pointed out to the ‘computer vision syndrome’ arising out of holding such online classes and noted that the Dean, Regional Institute of Ophthalmology is yet to respond to the court’s query on the extent of damage it could cause on young students.

Based on this, the bench sought the State to reveal its stand on the issue and posted the plea for further hearing to July 27.