Teachers urge reopening of primary schools in Maharashtra

Letter highlights extreme disparity in access to online education, suggests decentralised approach.

One of the largest representative bodies of primary school teachers in Maharashtra has requested the State government to restart primary schools by decentralising decision-making powers at the tehsil level. The Maharashtra State Primary Teachers Committee (MSPTC), which represents over 1.50 lakh of its members, has highlighted in its letter the extreme disparity in access to online education, saying that for the majority of students from the primary section, education had “almost stopped” for one to one-and-a-half years. “Online education cannot be the replacement of classroom. The requirements for this, including mobile range, are not available everywhere. Students not only from remote areas and from poor, labourer families but even those in middle-class have not been able to access online education,” said the letter, addressed to State’s School Education minister Varsha Gaikwad.