Following several cases of sexual harassment reported against teachers in the Padma Seshathrir and other schools , the DMK led government by M.K Stalin had issued detailed guidelines on conducting online classes, including asking the school management to record all virtual sessions.
The Tamil Nadu government on issued detailed guidelines for online education for schools in the state.
The guidelines were framed based on those issued by the National Council of Educational Research and Training recently.
The government has said that each online session may have 30-45 minutes of curricular delivery and children with special needs may have shorter sessions.
Teachers can take a maximum of 6 classes per day and 28 classes in a week and a break of at least 10-15 minutes shall be given between each session to give rest to the eyes and enable children to relax.
lasses may be scheduled between 9 am and 5 pm on all working days and all electronic communication regarding this may be restricted between 8 am and 6 pm.
The government has said that no online classes may be scheduled for pre-primary classes, not more than two sessions of 30-45 minutes a day for students in classes 1-8 and not more than four such sessions for students in classes 9-12 in a day.
Even as the School Education Department listed the guidelines in an order, it said that this is only advisory in nature. It was issued in response to the Madras High Court’s direction to the state asking it to come out with clear guidelines.
In addition, the School Education Department also decided to monitor messages on WhatsApp groups created by teachers in government and government-aided institutions to connect Class 9-12 students.
A senior official from the School Education Department said the government decided to give online assignments to the students with one teacher in charge of coordinating with 10 students.
“The assignment on WhatsApp groups would be useful for the students and unwanted forward messages or pictures should be avoided,” he added.
Stating that all district education officers were told to instruct headmasters to monitor the WhatsApp group created by teachers, he said,
“The headmasters will also be included in the group so they could instruct both students and teachers not to use the platform for irrelevant messages, photos or videos, especially during this pandemic situation.”
However, the official also said that if a student was found posting irrelevant information on the group, he/she will not be removed from the group.
“Instead the headmaster or the teacher would personally call him and advise him on avoiding such unwanted information.”
After a former student of a Padma Seshathiri school in the city shared an Instagram post on sexual harassment by a higher secondary teacher, several students in the same school have come forward with similar complaints led to arrest of Rajagopala vardhchari , commece subject taken teacher
Also be been booked under stringent POCSO laws and inquiry is on against a few others in the same Institute .
This leads to government has asked parents to monitor the classes and ensure that kids do not fall prey to cyber bullying.