Mumbai parents share hard lessons from a year of online learning

Image for representational purpose only. Photo: istock

A little over a year ago, Mumbai-based parent Violet Monteiro did not anticipate how expensive 2020 was going to be for her. Soon after schools turned remote, online classes began eating into savings which she had set aside for the family's other priorities. Besides school fees, they now needed a Wi-Fi connection and multiple electronic devices to study. "I had stopped a Wi-Fi connection years ago but it was necessary for online studies. I had to buy a new phone and repair my old one for both my children to be able to study. Initially, I even kept my phone at home for them," says the mother, whose two children are in class 9 and class 11.

Monteiro's experience mirrors that of many working parents. The pandemic has similarly taken a toll on a single parent from Kalwa, who has two children -- one with special needs and the other a teenage girl. "Both my children had different needs, and as a single parent who goes to work, we didn't have enough gadgets. We didn't even have an internet connection that could run video calls," explains the mother, who requested not to be named. All this required an investment of at least Rs 7,000 a year. "The fact that we live in a small space made it more difficult, if the timings of the classes clashed, it would become a problem for both of them,"

The Kalwa resident had to turn to the local church group for support. The parish priest arranged for the phones and the internet connection so her children could study while she stepped out every day to make a living.

Making ends meet
Digitally-delivered education seemed futuristic at first but it brought forth many challenges. While most children were excited to not have to go to school initially, the task of attending online classes soon proved to be tiring. For their parents, it was a double whammy of helping their child keep up in class and working out home expenses. Even as some scurried for devices, there were others barely managing to put food on the table.

NGOs in the city, like the Saturday Art Class, stepped in to help in such cases. Since its founding in 2017 by Chhavi Khandelwal and Manasi Mehan, the group has been supporting government, low-income aided schools, after-school programmes and shelters by teaching a formally structured art-based curriculum. When the pandemic broke out, the duo realised that they had to first start helping families with food, as parents they work with - many of them daily wage labourers - lost jobs in the lockdown.

Only after first providing ration starting in April 2020 were they confident that the families had the necessary nourishment to continue with education. Then their classes, which focus on social and emotional learning, life skill development, and character strengthening, moved online. But the bigger challenge was yet to come. Khandelwal says, "It started with literally the children say-ing, ‘Didi, aaj phone nahi hai', ‘Didi, today my sister is using the phone', ‘Didi my father is going out'. I know two parents who left their phones at homes for their kids but it couldn't go on like that because once the parents started their work, they had to take the phone."

It prompted Saturday Art Class to create short videos that communicate lessons to children under 10 minutes so parents don't have to leave phones for long hours. The group released these on an app, Learning Delight, and will make them available on YouTube in various regional languages, as a part of a programme called Everyone's an Artist.

Side-effects of online education
While parents have managed to address the online education challenge, they don't seem to be in favour of it. Monteiro says it is inefficient and children become lazier and more addicted to phones instead. "Online learning has spoiled children's discipline, interest, understanding, and there is also no interaction between students and teachers, and no physical exercise too." However, she adds that while they didn't know how to use Google Meet and Zoom Meet earlier, they have now learned that.

Just like the mother of two, Prabhadevi resident Gargi Vishal Bagkar isn't a fan of the online medium, but gives credit to teachers, who are themselves facing the issue of using a different medium than the usual in-person method. "They are trying their best to make the experience better," she says. Bagkar adds, "There is no doubt that the lesson taught by the teacher sitting in front of the children in the classroom is remembered well by them, and they study with joy."

Just like Monteiro and Bagkar, the single mother from Kalwa prefers classroom learning too. She says children could clear their doubts by directly asking their teacher or discussing with friends. "All that is not so easy anymore. Online lessons are just recorded videos. The children miss the classroom environment and their friends," she explains. She is also worried about the safety of her daughter because of the kind of area they reside in; when her daughter went to school, she would spend half the day there, and that used to make the mother feel secure.

If there is one thing that has been taken as a positive by these parents, it is the fact that their children can operate their electronic devices better. It may just help them in the future.