Online Education at a Primary School in Bhilwara ‘Nearly 50% of our students do not have a proper smartphone’
The Government Primary School in Bambola doesn’t have any computer for its office use. Nonetheless its teachers have been trying to educate their students through the internet, as part of a Rajasthan government program called Social Media Interface for Learning Engagement – or SMILE.
A small village of some 60 households located in Bhilwara district, some 250km from Jaipur, Bambola has seen hardly any cases of COVID19, yet its sole primary school remains closed since New Delhi imposed a lockdown last March.
SMILE involves joining a WhatsApp group, in which videos prepared or selected by the department of education are shared with teachers along with study materials. Teachers forward these links to their students’ parents’ phones, and are expected to call them to check that they have been watching.