Maha: With no internet access, teachers paint walls with graffiti to teach kids amid COVID

Opting for an innovative and creative method to impart lessons to kids, a school in Maharashtra has been painting walls of houses in the vicinity with lessons to overcome the challenges of unavailability of internet amid the ongoing coronavirus crisis. According to a PTI report, the students were unable to afford smartphones, therefore the lecturers at the Asha Marathi Vidyalaya school, Maharashtra decided to use the walls to teach kids. Teachers painted the walls with lessons from the textbooks in Nilamnagar to provide education to the poor kids of the village despite lack of resources. 

As many as 300 walls were used to teach students from Classes 1 to 10. Teachers used markers to draw diagrams and write text as students gathered around to learn, adhering to the social distancing norms. Students took down notes from the wall outside the houses that were converted to makeshift writing boards. According to PTI, a teacher from the Asha Marathi Vidyalaya primary school in Nilamnagar of Solapur said that it was in fact convenient for the students to stand near the walls following the social distancing guidelines. There were a total of 1,700 students that were enrolled in the primary school and secondary section of Shri Dharmanna Sadul Prashala, as per the PTI report. However, due to the pandemic, the students had no access to education. And because most students came from humble backgrounds, they could not afford the technological devices to be able to learn via online medium. 

“Online education is the new norm in the current COVID-19 situation for which smartphones with good internet bandwidth is a must. But, the parents of the majority of our students do not have smartphones or any other gadget, so online classes is a distant dream for them,” Gaikwad said. Therefore, he added, “We painted contents from textbooks on the walls of houses in Nilamnagar by making them simpler, comprehensible and interesting.”

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Students from other schools joined

Further, the students, as per their convenience, could “stand in front of the walls following all the social distancing norms and revise the lessons,” Gaikwad said. Asha Marathi Vidyalaya’s Principal Tasleem Pathan informed the media that as many as 1,700 students studied in the school, nevertheless many were benefiting from the innovative idea. He added that several other students from the nearby schools also joined the classes. Teachers taught maths, sentence formation, grammar, mathematical formulas, general knowledge, and lessons from various other subjects, Gaikwad informed PTI. 

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