THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Shutdown of schools till March 31 due to COVID-19 scare has come as an opportune moment for the state to roll out an online IT training programme for its nearly 81,000 teachers. During this period, the Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE) will impart online IT training to teachers using hi-tech equipment deployed in schools.
In the normal mode, the IT training would have been conducted in three batches in over 1,000 centres with each centre having 25 teachers and two trainers. However, in online mode, the same training would be completed within five days.
The state government had called off the school annual examinations up to the primary level and the students have been granted an early vacation as a precautionary measure to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. As part of KITE’s ‘E-cube English’ (Enjoy, Enhance & Enrich English) programme for improving the English language efficiency, it was already decided to provide specific vacation training for all primary and upper primary teachers during the April-May period. The proposed new system would facilitate the completion of the first part of the training during March 18 to 27.