MARDAN: Both the students and teachers have blamed each other for being unable to make full use of the online classes launched after the closure of educational institutions due to coronavirus pandemic.

Mohammad Hasham Khan, a 10th grader in a private school, told Dawn that their school had made a WhatsApp group for each subject to share study-related material with them.

He, however, said sometimes they faced difficulty in understanding online lectures and assignments. “There is a lot of difference between in-person and online classes as the teachers’ lectures inside classroom are easily understandable,’’ he said.

Hasanat Khan, a 9th grader, said students often faced hurdles while signing-in to the online session. “Downloading the software specified by our school’s administration for conducting the online classes is another problem.”

He insisted that the teachers were also confused whenever students contacted them to ask them how to download the software.

Mohammad Tariq, a teacher, told Dawn that they had started online classes to save the precious time of students. He said the teachers had time and again informed students through messages in their relevant WhatsApp groups about timing of their online classes and tests, but more than 50 per cent students did not take interest in online classes and remained absent at the time of the online session.

The teacher said they were planning to conduct classes only for those students who were going to appear in board examinations.

Kamal Khan, whose four children are studying in different educational institutes, said as he belonged to a lower middle-class family he could not buy separate smartphones for each of his child as often their online classes were held simultaneously.

Riaz Hussain, another parent, said minors often misused mobile phone sets by playing games and watching cartoons.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2021