The Covid-19 pandemic-induced lockdown has
brought significant changes to our life and one of them is a transformation in
the mode of education. To most students and parents, online studies seem
hectic and irrelevant as children do not pay much heed to the lessons.
However, there are some students who are interested to study but do not have enough resources to learn lessons from another tutor. In order to keep up with the interest of students, a teacher from Punjab’s Bathinda decided to impart knowledge for free to the students across the nation.
Sanjeev Kumar, a government school teacher from Bathinda, is teaching students of Chennai, Kochi, Mumbai, Mysore, Panaji, and Indore about trigonometry and algebra.
Presently, Kumar has over 3,500 students of class VIII to XII mainly from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Jammu & Kashmir. Not only national students are getting benefited from Kumar’s kind gesture but there some 80 students from Kenya, UAE, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia who attend Kumar’s free lectures.
Sanjeev Kumar, who is 43 and has over 18 years of teaching experience started the free online education project during the first Covid-19 lockdown that happened in March 2020.
"Since last week of March 2020, I am conducting free online classes of mathematics for students of Class VIII to XI as then I had ample time due to lockdown. The students are from various parts of the country. My first class was on March 29 of the last year in which only 50 students participated. However, the other day, I got 350 messages and within ten days the strength of my class rose to 600 to 700 students,” said Kumar.
"Till March 31, 2021, I had 2,500 students. About 700 of them left as most of them were of Class XII and they had completed their studies. We were left with 1,800 students and in April, another batch of 1,700 students joined. Now we have more than 3,500 students,” added Kumar.
He further added, “Maximum students are from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Jammu and Kashmir with students requesting from Telangana. Also, more than 80 students from across the nation (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Malaysia) joined the classes.”
With the increasing strength of the students, Sanjeev Kumar devised another strategy to impart education in an effective and efficient manner. Therefore, he purchased a zoom business plan and decided to deliver lectures group-wise.
To ensure student participation, Kumar said, “We give them codes 10 minutes prior to their class, we send them the password to join classes on zoom.”
To assess their children’s performance, many parents also starting attending the zoom classes.
"There are five classes daily for one hour each. I take two special extra classes per week for the students of Kenya and UAE to clear their doubts and also twice a week classes to prepare students for National Talent Search Examination (NTSE)," Kumar said.
Besides teaching himself, Kumar had also added guest lecturers from 15 renowned doctors, educationists, and actors.
"From this session, I have started taking one-hour online live tests of students after teaching a chapter and give the students’ feedback on their performance. We select the topper of the test and courier a subject-related book worth Rs 500 to the child," said Kumar.
It is to be noted here, Kumar’s wife, also a teacher is extending help to her husband as she prepares the notes for all students and sends them.