Karnal: Students bypass firewall, access social media sites on study tabs

Parveen Arora

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Karnal, April 23

Putting another challenge before the Education Department, several students of the government schools, who had been provided tablets under the e-Adhigam scheme launched in 2022, have bypassed the security feature — mobile device management (MDM) — on their tabs to get access to social media sites. As per the authorities, if the MDM is active in the tabs, the students cannot get access to the sites other than the teaching.

The data collected by The Tribune revealed a shocking picture of the experience of the teachers and students in the first year of this project. A number of the students have bypassed the MDM, which is said to be highly secured and prohibits the students from getting access to social sites like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. As many as 186 students have accessed social media sites in the Gharaunda block. The situation is almost same in other blocks too, said an official.

“I was surprised when I saw a student accessing social sites on his tab. When I enquired, he said he got it unblocked from market. These tabs have been provided to students only for study purposes, not to pass their time on social media sites. We have to strengthen our security system to stop students from doing so,” said a teacher of the Nilokheri block.

Students and teachers are facing lots of problems due to poor network and low speed of the internet in rural areas, which hamper their study.

“We have been facing a lot of difficulties while using tabs owing to poor network connectivity,” said a student of Class XII of a school in the Indri block. An official dealing with the project said they had received such complaints from around 40 schools out of 121.

Apart from it, the teachers are facing problem due to the limitation of subjects. At present only three subjects are taught through tabs – Hindi, social science and English, while the teachers of other subjects cannot use these tabs to teach students. “All the subjects should be taught with the help of these tabs, which will increase the overall percentage of usages of the tabs by teachers,” said a teacher of the Gharaunda block.

An official said these tabs were distributed to 28,600 students of Classes X, XI and XII. Of them, 9,308 students appeared for the exams of Class XII and their tabs were taken back, but, as per the officials, some students are yet to return their tabs. The department is expecting around 10,000 new enrolments of the students in Class X, for which the department will demand more tabs, an official maintained.

Raj Pal, District Education Officer (DEO), said parents and students would be sensitised on not opening social media sites as the tabs were given to them for study purpose. The MDM will also be strengthened so that students could not bypass it. “We will ask the internet providing companies for better connectivity,” said the DEO.

Poor network, low net speed hampering study

• Students and teachers are facing lots of problems due to poor network and low speed of internet in rural areas, which hamper their study
• Vaishali Sharma, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said she would get the issue of poor internet connectivity resolved
• The teachers are also facing problem due to the limitation of subjects. At present only three subjects are taught through tabs – Hindi, social science and English