With no strong mechanism in place to improve attendance of students in the digital learning programmes, viewership of YouTube classes introduced by Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) at elementary level has dropped by 38 per cent within less than a month of its launch.
The average number of views for all online live classes for Class I to VIII, which was 4.35 lakh on June 23, has come down to 3.2 lakh on July 16. There has been a decline in views of around 42 per cent from Class I to VIII in Odia and mathematics subjects, while there is a drop of 31 per cent in total views for English classes conducted for Class IV to VIII. Similarly, the total views for live Odia classes from Class I to VIII was 6.26 lakh on June 23 which plunged to 3.62 lakh on July 16. The average views for Odia subject in each class which used to be around 78,000 has now decreased to around 45,000.
For maths subject, the viewership has slipped from 81,100 to 46,900 during the period. The average views of live English classes has also declined to 44,800 on July 16 from 65,200 on June 23. The decline in viewership has raised serious concern over elementary education as the government has no immediate plans to resume classes in offline mode.
Though around 22 lakh students have access to internet facility in Odisha, poor attendance at elementary level is a matter of worry and defeats the objective of digital learning programme, educationists stated. The State government had asked the school teachers to reach out to parents to increase views and ensure students do not skip the digital learning programme. However, in many areas, teachers have not been able to carry out the task either due to other government assignments or lack of accountability.
Former director of elementary education Chudamani Seth said the digital views will increase only if parents having internet facility are actively involved and encourage their wards to attend the classes from home. School and Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash said he will look into the matter to take appropriate measures to improve the online attendance of students.
