Nagaland: Teachers give away free smartphones to students

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 1 (EMN): The Covid-19 crisis has forced classroom teaching to move online, and school-going children from marginalised backgrounds and rural society have been left further behind due to lack of access to devices and internet network.

Although the department of School Education has issued a semi-online education model, keeping such students in mind, they are still facing problems, as students need smart phones to receive notes and submit assignments.

To bridge the learning gap, some teachers have been providing smartphones to their students. One of those teachers is from a private school in Mon, who has already donated nine smartphones to her students.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, Olem Motan, a teacher at Model School in Mon, recalled how attempts to communicate with her students were not successful, as many did not possess even a phone to make calls.

She maintained that during admission, when the school asked for contact details of parents, ‘everyone gave’.

However, when the Covid-induced lockdown forced schools to shut down and parents were contacted for communication, she learned that many had given their neighbour’s contact numbers while some had left for their villages.

She found out that there were many families without a smartphone, or even if they do, the phones were not compatible to support most apps.

The teacher shared that she had initially intended to help the students of her class and started the campaign with the help of her friends and family.

‘It was positive and many well-wishers, who were strangers, also helped,’ she said.

Motan shared that getting the smartphones to Mon town was a problem during the lockdown; transporting the handsets from Kohima and Dimapur, which her friends helped in purchasing with the money received from well-wishers, got delayed because of the lockdown.

"Only after nearly a month, the phone got delivered to Mon and was handed over to the students and some had appeared their exam using those phones," she said.

The teacher said that it was ‘overwhelming' how some students had ‘even given out from their piggy banks’, and added that well-wishers, including the deputy commissioner of Mon, had helped.

In Zunheboto, teachers of Cornerstone School also took up the initiative of providing phones to the parents of their students, who could not afford to provide their children with phones for online classes.

According to a source, the initiative was taken up after the teachers found out that some students were finding difficult to keep up with the online classes, as their parents could not afford to buy smartphones.

Some students were on the verge of discontinuing their studies for the same reason, it was informed.

Having learned of the problem, the teachers decided to raise some fund and buy smartphones.

They were able to buy 12 smartphones 'from a dealer who was generous enough to give an offer for the cause'.

The source stated that the teachers had to 'identify the deserving ones' from among students numbering more than 800.

Meanwhile, the teachers expressed gratitude to the selfless contribution and support showered by the donors and well-wishers from different places.