'Education Through Telephone' to start for classes XI, XII from Jan 24

kolkata: The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) is all set to launch "Education Through Telephone" (Banglar Siksha- Durabhase) for classes XI and XII from January 24.

This will be the first time when such services will be made available for the students of the higher secondary level in the state.

"Teachers are taking classes in online mode but there is always a digital divide and 100 percent of the students cannot be reached in virtual mode. However, there is at least land phone or mobile phone in every single household. The IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System ) based service will be a boon to them as teachers will be just a phone call away and will be ready to help in clearing doubts or answering to their queries," a senior official of WBCHSE said.

Council president Chiranjib Bhattacharya said such IVRS-based service would be available in 18 subjects involving all the three streams – Arts, Science and Commerce taught in the higher secondary level.

"A pool of 800 to 1000 teachers from all the districts have been roped in with a minimum of 30 teachers in each subject with the maximum going upto 50. The availability will be formulated in such a manner that at least 5 teachers in every subject will be available on call on a particular day," the official added. The telephone-based service will be available from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm till there is further direction regarding opening of schools. Classes IX, X, XI and XII had opened up on November 16 last year. But were suspended again with effect from January (following Christmas vacation) with restrictions imposed after a steep rise in COVID-19 positive cases was witnessed.

The "Education Through Telephone" (Banglar Siksha- Durabhase) that was launched for the students of classes VI to X from Monday received an overwhelming response.

"More than 1000 calls were received at the toll free number 18001232823 and interestingly 75 per cent of such calls were from outside Kolkata, which is a clear indication that this service is proving to be beneficial for students across the state," Aveek Majumdar, Chairman of Syllabus Restructure Committee said.