Students losing ability to write as schools remain closed

Kumaran P. | NT

Bengaluru, Jan. 16 The recent closure of schools and colleges in the state following a rise in Covid-19 cases has now once again disrupted the learning process and put pressure on parents as they have to help children out with assignments and projects. The prolonged closure of offline classes due to the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on the writing abilities of students.

Sushma Ravi, a parent said, “My daughter is in Class 6 and she was writing and reading well two years back, but slowly that has now come down. Writing has come down so much that we have to dictate what to write. Schools are giving assignments of six pages together and they are unable to write. We just sent them to school and thought they will quickly pick it up, but now the earlier routine of online classes is back.”

Many schools have given many writing assignments to children as projects and assignments to make up for their absence from offline classes. Nihal Jain, another parent said, “The school has a subject called Art Appreciation in Class 7. First of all we have never heard of it and on top of that, these kids are searching all over the internet with the same question and they are not finding the answers. We remember using Google for answers only in our graduation and this has become a habit at Class 7. This shows what is the level of learning they are going to grasp.”

Shubha Rani, a teacher from a private school said, “The portions have been upgraded and we are making children write, because they will lose the habit of writing. If we do not give writing exercises, then it will become difficult for them. The syllabus is so vast that we are bound to rush.” Any subject which requires a lot of writing work is worrying parents. The core subjects are still manageable they say. Rahul Kiran, a parent in J.P. Nagar said, “Mathematics, Science and English are all manageable for us. Social Science subjects have lengthy answers to write. They have topics which need internet support for children and they are not able to cope so easily. We are spending half a day with them after the government stopped offline classes for children.”