Take back tablets from students: Sarpanches urge Haryana govt
Write to chief minister, education minister; say screen time has increased manifold among children and is impacting their studies
Kaithal’s Rohera village sarpanch has written to the chief minister and education minister demanding that the government should take back the tablets distributed to students of Class 10 and 12.
He said free tablets distributed to the students by the Haryana government are impacting their studies and have led to increased screen time.
“We have received several complaints from parents and a panchayat was called on the issue. The panchayat unanimously resolved to write to the government to take these tablets back from the students immediately,” village sarpanch Mandeep Singh told HT.
He said, “We have observed the results of students of village’s government school and everybody admitted that the students who were given tablets were lagging in study. Even there are reports that some students have also got access to the objectionable content online.”
The sarpanch and villagers have written to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Haryana education minister Kanwar Pal to take these tablets back immediately so that students could focus on their study instead of wasting time on it.
Pai village sarpanch Rajbala said due to free access to Internet, students remain glued to tablets and parents have been complaining about it regularly.
“We had taken up the issue with the school authorities but they said a decision in this regard could be taken by the government only. Thus, we have written to the chief minister and education minister,” she added. She said online study was useful during Covid lockdown but now the classes are being conducted offline and there is no need of tablets.
On the other hand, Kaithal district education officer Ravinder Kumar said tablets are very useful for students and they are competing with the students of CBSE-affiliated schools. “The parents should also keep a tab on their children and ensure that students use them judiciously for education and learning purposes only,” he added.
Earlier, several sarpanches from Jind district had also raised a similar issue and written to the Haryana education department additional chief secretary seeking rollback of the e-Adhigam scheme, under which tablets were distributed to 5.34 lakh students enrolled in government schools from Classes 10 to 12 last year. The government spent ₹ 620 crore on the project and the students also get free 2GB Internet data daily.
