Malkangiri: During these difficult times of pandemic, when offline teaching has been put on hold, online education has become a new normal.
However, reality bites when it comes to implementation of online teaching in remotest pockets where students do not receive benefits of online education.
Lack of electricity and network facilities is blamed for this. Podkhal village of Jodamba panchayat in the Swabhiman Anchal in Malkangiri district can be taken as a case in point.
The village is inhabited by around 18 families. Their children are reading in schools and colleges. As of now, when their classmates living in neighbouring villages are attending classes through online, they feel they are lagging behind.
Prior to pandemic, most of the children would stay in hostels of the institutions. As offline classes were suspended with the outbreak of Covid-19, they were forced to return home.
Expressing their concern, these children said had there been electricity and internet facility in their village, they would not have been deprived of online classes.
“There are central and state government schemes for rural electrification like Saubhagya Yojana and Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana. But we are not getting any benefits from these yojanas. Besides other problems we are facing, our children are still studying in dim light of kerosene oil lamp. And taking online class is a dream for them. We have been requesting administrative officials to provide power connection to our village but received no joy as yet,” rued some villages including Udaynath Seesa, Padam Seesa and Danapati Seesa.
In this regard, when Chitrakonda block development officer (BDO) Rahul Mandal was contacted, he said he would soon take steps to bring electricity to the village.
PNN
