JOIN USTuition not easy online
Before the pandemic hit, students often travelled to the tuition centres after school, or took private tuition at their teachers’ houses. Now, they spend the extra hour in front of a laptop.
Attentive students
Shyama Kumari, lecturer by day and Hindi tutor after 3 pm, feels students are more attentive during one-on-one online sessions.
“My youngest student is six and the oldest is 21. Some of them are international students too. I not only teach them academic portions, but also help them with spoken Hindi. Individual attention is needed for that,” she says.
Additional time
Parent Swathi Harshu says she is happy to spend more time with her six-year-old son. “Yes, he would have learnt more in school but I’m teaching him the syllabus at home. Every day, a tuition teacher covers different topics and I spend more time with him after that, explaining the concepts,” she says. She has to juggle office work and domestic chores and also make time for lessons.
Parent woes
Parents are worried on many counts. Shreya Tejas, parent of ninth-standard student Shilpa, says, “This academic year is taking a toll on all of us. As a parent, I help because I don’t want my child to fall behind on subjects, but I also worry about the amount of homework she is left with at the end of the day.”
Shreya feels online coaching is helpful. “I cannot be with her the whole day. I have to finish my office work and get things going at home too,” she says.
Expert advice
Child psychiatrist Dr Ruchi Gupta advises parents to not worry about children spending more time in front of the screen.
“You cannot call this screen time because teachers are engaging them in answering questions, taking notes or even getting them to listen. So they are engaging in their other senses and not just staring at the screen the whole time,” she says.
Calling it interactive screen time, Ruchi encourages parents to not fixate on good grades. “Focus on other activities that will build their cognitive ability and improve their skills, and not just on rote learning,” she advises.
Online challenges
After 11 years of conducting classes, Lakshya Launchpad tuition centre has online classes now.
Lakshmi Baskar, from the centre located in Vigyan Nagar, says, “If there were about eight to 10 students in a batch earlier, we now have six because of network problems.” Teachers are working from home, but not all are comfortable with the arrangement. “One of them comes to the institute from Koramangala because he doesn’t have a good Internet connection at home,” she explains.