First Bell rings in new normal in school education

As the clock ticked 10, standard VII students Manju and Arjun switched the TV on. Holding a pen and notebook, they sat glued to the screen where a teacher intently read out from a social studies textbook. This is the new normal in Kerala even as the Covid-19 put off the reopening of schools for months. When lockdown forced everyone to stay at home, the government made sure the students did not miss out on their lessons, rolling out a first-of-its-kind virtual learning initiative in India called First Bell

Kerala is the first state to introduce such a programme which airs quality content that can match similar privately-owned e-learning apps. The First Bell initiative was launched by the General Education Department as an interim solution in the form of regular classes as schools remained closed owing to Covid-19-induced lockdown. Initially, as many as 604 classes have been aired through KITE (Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education) Victers, a state-run educational channel. Apart from this, students received 274 classes in Kannada medium and 163 Tamil Medium classes. Since the programme was launched, the viewership of web-streaming platforms of KITE Victers also steadily grew.

Records state that the Victers YouTube channel also received an astonishing response, generating monthly 150 million views. With 54 lakh views (5 lakh views per hour), the daily average viewership of the classes on the YouTube channel touched a tremendous milestone. To reach out to more students, the classes are also broadcast live on the official Facebook channel of Victers. The government also made sure that students never get distracted or bored with classes by introducing augmented reality and virtual reality as much as possible. Though the use of virtual and augmented realities are now restricted, KITE will explore more such possibilities and expand them to make classes more entertaining.

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