State seeks more time to frame norms for online classes

When a pea in this regard came up for hearing before a division bench comprising Justice MM Sundresh and Justice R Hemalatha on Monday, the petitioner’s counsel J Ravindran pointed out that it has been three months since the plea has been moved seeking to frame guidelines for holding online classes.

But the State was yet to come out with rules despite the Centre announcing guidelines for the same.

However, the bench conceded the plea by the government counsel that the process was in progress and hence needed more time to finalise the guidelines, and posted the plea for further hearing to August 3.

During the previous hearing the bench had observed that the Centre had issued guidelines that were only advisory in nature, and had sought the State government to frame appropriate guidelines as soon as possible.

The plea had sought to restrain schools from conducting online classes or restrict the time children were made to spend online for this.

The petitioner had also contended that in the guise of imparting education, all educational institutions were pushing students to mental and physical suffering.

Another plea pointed out that several pop-up ads with explicit content appeared during online sessions, which disturbed the student’s mind and lives.

Moreover, expanding online education would push the digital have-nots to the periphery of the education system thereby increasing inequity in educational outcomes, the plea had said.