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The Ministry of Human Resource Development recently came out with a fresh set of guidelines for online classes conducted by schools, limiting their on-screen time as well as the number of sessions per day.
MHRD has recommended that states limit daily screen time for classes 9-12 at 3 hours, classes 1-8 at 1.5 hours, pre-primary at 30 minutes with parents.
To get a parent perspective on how long these online classes should be, LocalCircles, a leading community social media platform, conducted a survey across the country and received 21,322 votes, which included responses from 239 districts of the country.
Parents were asked what according to them was the best solution to this. While 29 per cent said what the Centre has proposed is appropriate, 18 per cent felt the daily limit should be at 5 hours for classes 9-12, 4 hours for Classes 6-8, 3 hours for Classes 1-5 and 1 hour for the Pre-Primary.
Thirty-one per cent said the daily limit should be at 4 hours for classes 9-12, 3 hours for classes 6-8, 2 hours for classes 1-5 and 1 hour for Pre-Primary, while 7 per cent said the daily limit should be Classes 9-12 at 3 hours, Classes 6-8 at 2.5 hours, Classes 1-5 at 2 hours, and Pre-Primary at 1 hour.
Thirteen per cent said the daily limit should be at 3 hours for classes 9-12, 2.5 hours for classes 6-8, 1.5 hours for classes 1-5, and 30 minutes for Pre-Primary.
This shows that 69 per cent of parents oppose the screen time limits for online classes proposed by the government. Many parents have suggested that the limits should be higher.
Parents also suggested that a separate category should be created for classes 6-8, as the curriculum and requirements of this group were different from that for primary school.
An earlier poll conducted by LocalCircles had revealed that the majority of parents do not want schools to restart till at least their district and a 20-km radius around it reports zero cases for 21 days.
76 per cent parents also said it was unfeasible or very difficult for schools to operate with social distancing.
Some parents felt that there should be standards on how online classes are conducted such that the use of screen once the classes are over is minimised.
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