Technology is a boon for this school chain in Lucknow in the times of Corona Crisis

Lucknow, May 30 : As city after city fell silent under the grip of the countrywide lockdown in March, the CMS Director of Strategy, Roshan Gandhi got a golden chance - albeit in an unhappy macro scenario - to test online learning, something he had been working towards for close to 8 years.

            CMS's ability to deliver is primarily due to its head start and foresight of Roshan Gandhi, an Oxford university alumnus. As early as 2011-12, Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, President, CMS, had realised potential and benefits of online learning.

            That's why almost eight years ago, the school up an e-learning department, directly supervised by its Director of Strategy, Roshan Gandhi. This department immediately started intensive training curriculums for its teachers.

            What made CMS more vigilant towards online learning was the fact that students often lost valuable time in Lucknow as the district magistrate often calls for closure of schools due to inclement weather. To overcome hiccups like these, CMS had set up Google classrooms for every grade and every child over Class 6 had a Gmail account and email address even prior to the Covid-19 crisis.

            Around March 8th, the e-learning department conducted a refresher training of all the campus IT Assistants and teachers. Emails of students in Class 3, 4 and 5 were created with the staff and teachers working overtime, as senior classes already had them.

            We have been working with two primary objectives: "No teacher left behind" and "no child left behind", explains Roshan. He says that progress is being measured regularly and the 18 principals have Zoom meetings to keep abreast of how everyone is faring.

            Almost all schools around the country have jumped in to try and provide their students some kind of routine, structure and learning during the Covid-19 crisis but in most cases the online teaching has been scrappy for a host of reasons including poor connectivity, a lack of appropriate devices, lack of teacher preparedness, inability of parents to assist their wards, lack of familiarity with technology or at times even sheer apathy. Very few institutions - mostly in much higher fee brackets - are managing to do a robust job. A head start by Roshan Gandhi helped CMS stay a bit ahead of the curve. The Covid-19 crisis may not be premeditated but online education has been rearing its head for a while now.