Context: Recently, the Odisha state government has opted for radio to reach out to children in remote areas of the State, as online classes fail to reach most students due to poor mobile connectivity.

• Although teaching through radio would not be effective as it could have been in a physical classroom, the dire situation has forced the administration to try different methods for reaching students.

Reason behind this move

• The schools could not be opened due to Covid-19 pandemic so the education department tried to reach students with online classes, mostly through smartphones.
• However, out of the 60 lakh students, hardly 22 lakhs were being reached during the lockdowns.
• The situation worsened when the lockdown was lifted and parents started going to their workplaces taking the only smartphone in the family with them. It led to a further drop of 6 to 7 lakh students attending virtual classes.
• Those who have a sufficient number of smart devices for students, suffer due to poor network coverage.

About the Initiatives

• The School and Mass Education Department will launch classroom teaching through All India Radio.
• As per the plan, students from Class I to VIII can learn their lessons through 15-minutes of teaching by experienced teachers through radio. It will be available everyday from 10 a.m. to 10.15 a.m.
• Apart from that Students have been provided with textbooks even though schools in Odisha have been closed since 17th March 2020.
• These three hours of classroom instruction are also available through Doordarshan.
• Since considerable time has been lost due to the closure of schools, school syllabus has been reduced by 30%.