Sindh education department has introduced online education for kindergarten to grade five students by launching a mobile education application in the province. The students shall be able to learn several subjects without going to schools in the time of the COVID-19 outbreak, local media reported. Notably, online education app is for KG to Grade V students.
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School Education and Literacy Department, Sindh (SELD) has prepared the online learning programme for the students during the COVID-19 pandemic in collaboration with UNICEF and Microsoft.
The online education app will teach the subjects of Mathematics, General Science, English and Urdu and the courses will be available in English, Urdu and Sindhi languages, education department officials said. “The work on the online education application for class six to 12 has been in progress,” the education department sources said.
Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani earlier said that the mobile app was launched to mitigate the loss faced by the students due to the closure of educational institutions in the wake of coronavirus pandemic. “Through this app, students can study in English, Urdu and Sindhi,” said the minister.
He added that provincial govt was not in a position to reopen schools. “We are not in a position to reopen schools, even if schools were reopened, many parents would not send their children”.
The heads of the Private Schools Action Committee (PSAC) said that education was not among the priorities of the government, adding that the school owners have decided to challenge the coronavirus ordinance and have already prepared school SOPs meaning they are going to reopen schools in Karachi from June 15.
Read More: Educational institutions in Sindh to remain closed till March 13
The deadly pandemic is increasing in Pakistan and is likely to pose a serious public health crisis for the incumbent government in the coming days. Private school owners and religious clerics announce to reopen madrassas regardless of what the government proposes to follow.
Members of the Private Schools Action Committee at the Karachi Press Club said that the continuous closure of schools has led to starvation in the homes of our teachers and employees, even paying the electricity bill and school rent has become increasingly difficult.
Pakistan’s top court refuses to seek expert opinion
It is worth noting that the apex court not only ordered the reopening of shopping malls but also noted that Pakistan “is not … seriously affected” by Covid-19 and that there is no pandemic in the country. However, Pakistan has had at least 43,966 confirmed cases and more than 900 deaths since March, and the numbers keep rising. At least 500 Pakistani healthcare workers have been infected too, which shows that the country has been hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.
“This is a medical emergency, therefore, an opinion of medical experts be sought in a similar fashion as the court did in the controversy regarding Zakat distribution,” the Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) argued while emphasizing that none of them was qualified enough to grasp the real danger being posed by the outbreak of global magnitude.
However, the five-judge bench in its order stated that although the AGP and AG-Sindh had requested the apex court to constitute a team of doctors to seek their opinion, the court, for the time being, did not find this essential as the government functionaries were alive and could do whatever they could in accordance with the law.
Read More: Educational institutions in Sindh to remain closed till March 13
As online education app has been launched in Sindh, social media users are questioning the Punjab government’s plan to deal with the COVID-19. Does the government have any plan to introduce an online education system for the school going kids? This is yet to be seen in the case of Punjab.