Jaipur: In the far-flung dhanies of the desert in Rajasthan where the mobile network is not available, government school teachers are now using camels as a mode of transport to reach out to students who are unable to access the internet to attend online classes. The classes are held under the shade of the trees, while following all the proper social distancing norms.
In Barmer district's Bhimthal, teachers of a government senior secondary school in Dhorimana block, around 90 km away from the district headquarter, are using camels to go to remote villages to teach students. The students are living in dhanis that are around 8-10 km away from the school.
"We have 700 students in our school and 150 of them have no access to online education as either mobile network is not available or the parents cannot afford smartphones, so we have deployed 4 teachers to go to the villages and take classes there. It takes around two hours to reach these villages and teaching is a challenging task in this hot weather," said Roopsing Jakhad, the principal of the school.
He added that the teachers go 3 days a week to the villages. The villagers are providing camels transport and helping teachers to teach the students.
The education department of Rajasthan has arranged online classes for the students of government schools and running a programme called ‘Aao Ghar Se Seekhen’ as offline classes are not possible due to Covid-19 guidelines.
Under the programme, the study material is sent through Whatsapp. Apart from this Doordarshan and Aakashwani are also being used to conduct the lessons.
But more than half the students in government schools are living in the far-flung areas of desert and remote villages and can't access the online education system. The department has decided that 50% of teachers of the school will remain go out and teach these students.
