With a third of the global population and K-12 and higher education institutions in 185 countries including India, locked down since mid-March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus aka Covid-19 pandemic, educators worldwide are confronted with the greatest disruption since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. Consequently, education institutions are responding to this disruption by shifting from traditional classrooms to online teaching learning and installing new ICT (information communication technologies) software and downloading two-way video conferencing apps to adhere to their academic calendars. The silver lining of the Covid-19 crisis is that it has stimulated education institutions and edtech companies the world over, to innovate ICT solutions to ensure that the teaching-learning process continues. Here’s how several randomly selected institutional managements are responding to the Covid-19 challenge. Riverside School, Ahmedabad Students of this Cambridge International, UK-affiliated school chose to continue their on-site volunteer work with the elderly in retirement homes and with children in paediatric cancer centres under the school’s unique Callinteer programme. Every morning Riverside volunteer students continue to engage with and provide online comfort and good cheer to the elderly and child cancer patients in specified old age homes and childcare centres. Their calls — often made through Facetime or Skype — last for 10-30 minutes and include playing online games. “The feedback from caregivers and nurses is that the elderly and children look forward to these interactions which liven their day,” says Kiran BirSethi, founder-director and principal of this top-ranked co-ed international day school. Arya Gurukul School, Mumbai Thane (Mumbai)-based Arya Gurukul School has completed final examinations of classes V-VIII students by switching to the online mode. An online portal was promptly created for scrutiny of science (class V), Sanskrit (class VI), social studies (class VII) and math (class VIII) papers. The digital platform was developed by the school’s technical support team working round the clock. The parents of all 546 classes VVIII students responded positively for conducting these exams online. Students were given weblinks to write the exams online at a time of their choice within a 48-hours time window. LEAD School@Home programme The Mumbai-based Leadership Boulevard Pvt. Ltd (estb.2012), a company that provides integrated technology, curriculum and pedagogy as a complete learning solution for classes I-IX to over 800 schools countrywide, has designed a new LEAD School@Home solution for all English-medium schools countrywide to start their new academic year in April. Over 100,000 students of the company’s 800 partner schools began their new academic year on April 2, learning four critical subjects — English, math, science and social science — online. In a special offer to enable children to continue learning, Leadership Boulevard offers seven days free trial of Lead School@Home to all schools countrywide, followed by a price offer of Rs.200 per student per month to continue learning the four subjects. “Our learning system and technology ensures that if children can’t come to school, we can take school to their homes. Now any school can begin its academic year every Monday starting April 6 by accessing LEAD School@ Home. All they need is to register on the LEAD School portal and our team will help them started quickly. Subsequently, parents can monitor their children’s progress through…
