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Pandemic Inspires Creative Teaching in Underprivileged Indian District

Anjana Pasricha

   RIGHER, INDIA - A group of school students bend over notebooks as they
   sit on mats in a village square in Righer village to study numbers,
   spelling, and other subjects. In the open space, they can easily be
   seated at a distance to adhere to COVID-19 social distancing protocols.

   The students have assembled for a two-hour session of community classes
   conducted outdoors by teachers and volunteers across dozens of villages
   in Nuh district in India's northern Haryana state as schools remain
   shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

   In another village, Kanwarsika, the morning bell announcing the start
   of a teaching session rings, not in the local school, but from a van
   equipped with a loudspeaker. Students settle down inside homes and in
   courtyards facing the street as, following a prayer, a teacher presents
   a chemistry lesson on a microphone.

   "This helps us keep up with our studies," said Sania Ahmed, a
   ninth-grade student, "and in our homes, we are safe from coronavirus
   also."

   From the classes held in open spaces to the mobile van that tours
   villages, the months-long shutdown of schools has inspired creative
   ways to teach thousands of students who cannot log on to online classes
   because they do not have access to smartphones and computers in
   villages across Muslim-dominated Nuh, a poor district in India.

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