2G or 4G: Teachers volunteer to coach students online to make up for academic loss

Srinagar: Pained by the academic loss, many teachers have volunteered to coach the students online despite low-speed internet.

Leading the charge is Mubeen Masudi, the co-founder of RISE, who has decided to start free online classes for mathematics and science for class 10th students.

“I intend to start free mathematics/science online classes for class 10 JKBOSE students. It will be accessible through 2G. I have the tech solution to implement it since I am already doing it for class 11 and12 students. I need volunteers for maximizing reach and efficiency,” Mubeen tweeted.

Mubeen later told The Kashmir Monitor that students have already lost a precious year in 2019. “The purpose is to provide quality education to students to make up for their losses. Last year there was no internet but today the internet is available although low speed.  Something is better than nothing,” he said.

Mubeen is using the Zoom Application to provide online classes. “There is a Whiteboard feature in the Zoom application which consumes lesser data when students mute their voice and switch off the video. Doubts are cleared via chat,” he said.

Mubeen said there was a privacy concern with this application because all of a sudden everyone started using Zoom App to maintain social distance. “They did not have a privacy checkpoint in place. But now, there is an option of meetings being password protected and authentication required,” he said.

Around 300 students have registered for fee coaching so far. “Initially I have kept it free for class 10th. But if we create a space for class 9th, we will convert it into a fundraiser and donate the money to an NGO fighting against COVID -19,” he said.

Towseef Ahmad Wani, a physics teacher from Central Kashmir’s Budgam district, has started a YouTube channel `Walew Physics Hachev’ to provide online lecturers for class 11th and 12th in the Kashmiri language.

Towseef uploads two videos every day with a maximum duration of 30 minutes.

“I started this initiative in the first week of April and the motive behind this is to help students in whatever possible way in these hard times. Any Kashmiri can access these videos. It is a hectic job when you have low internet speed,” he said.

It takes Towseef three hours to upload 250mb video file on his YouTube channel. Towseef was teaching physics in Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) as contractual faculty till December 2019.