Ed. Ministry to further develop online education in schools
The Education Ministry has decided to develop the online education system in the country, due to the regular interruption of education activities due to the COVID-19 situation.
An Additional Secretary to the Education Ministry has been appointed to look into this aspect under the subject of improving qualitative education, Education MInistry Secretary Kapila Perera said.
At divisional level and provincial level, students and teachers will be involved in the scheme, he said.
Accordingly school principals will need to submit the time table for online education and introduce a scheme within their schools to ensure that students follow online lessons.
The Education Ministry will monitor implementation of the scheme.
According to the plan it will be compulsory to carry out the online programmes between 7.30 a.m. and 1.30 p.m., while a few extra hours can be made use of thereafter to complete the lessons.
“Each school should have its own time table,” Prof. Perera said.
He said full time online classes will be planned, after taking into consideration the experience gained last year.
“With the current COVID situation it is difficult to give an exact time frame as to when the classes can begin and therefore we have decided on developing a full time online education system,” Prof. Perera said.
He said they hope to expand the online education system to include grade one to grade four students as well.
Until the online facilities are expanded, they hope to use existing systems, such as the use of television channels and radio channels, for students who do not have internet facilities.
Meanwhile there were plans to introduce a system where students from grade one to three will be requested to report to the nearest school instead of travelling to the school which they were enrolled in, Prof. Perera said.
“This scheme will be implemented once schools can be reopened,” he said.
He also said it was difficult to teach the alphabet for primary classes through an online system.