No internet so what! Teacher installs loudspeakers in village to teach poor students

June 28: No smartphones, no laptops, not even internet connectivity is available in a small village in Jharkhand. But so what; it is said, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.’ In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, when the policy makers are propagating online mode of teaching- learning, Shyam Kishore Singh Gandhi, the headmaster of a school in Jharkhand’s Dumka district has put up several loudspeakers across the Bankathi village where his Upgraded Middle School is located, and classes are being held for two hours every day since April 16, beating the odds of online learning.

Shyam Kishore Singh Gandhi, Principal of the school said, “Out of 246 students here, only 42 have Android phones. Many times we have seen that children are not able to open the phone, so we thought why not install a loud speaker. He said that the children are very excited about this kind of studies.” “If the students have any doubt or want to ask any question, they can send their queries to me from anyone’s mobile phone and we explain it the next day,” he added.

In tribal-dominated Dumka block, loudspeakers can be seen mounted on random rooftops, tree branches, and the pathways to make the learning accessible and audible to the students loud and clear. The classes start at 10 am daily. Five teachers and two para teachers teach over the mike from the classroom. The students sit near the loudspeakers which have been put up on trees and walls at different locations, and attend the classes.

Lauding the Principal, Dumka’s district education officer Poonam Kumari said all the 2,317 government schools here should emulate the model so that the students would not have to struggle to complete the syllabus once the lockdown is lifted.

Who said only doctors and health staff are the corona warriors? Such dedicated teachers can undoubtedly be termed as frontline corona warriors!