The Odisha Right to Education (RTE) Forum on Saturday urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to provide textbooks, storybooks and play materials to schoolchildren so that they would remain in touch with their learning goals during the COVID-19 lockdown period.
In a letter to the CM, the forum urged him to ask the School and Mass Education department to make necessary arrangements to reach out to the children and boost their self-confidence through interaction and providing textbooks and other materials to the children immediately.
All the teachers should be instructed to attend schools for at least two to three hours every morning during the lockdown period to facilitate providing textbooks and other materials and interact with the parents and children to guide on conducting different activities during the summer holidays.
It further suggested online programmes for skill development of teachers and teaching of children.
But the forum proposed that tribal and Dalit students should be engaged in community-based creative activities while keeping the social distancing norms as non-negotiable. Mentioning that private schools are charging a hefty fee for online coerces, the forum demanded that the Government nstruct private schools to reduce school fees for at least three months.
The Government should take all measures to see that dropout does not occur as many of children are expected to help their parents in earning livelihood post lockdown.
The forum said the Government should not implement its decision to close schools with 20 or less than 20 enrolments of children as many children from the underprivileged background would be out of school at this juncture.
Those who signed the memorandum included forum convenor Anil Pradhan and co-convenor Smruti Jena.