Delhi-NCR: Classes home-delivered for tiny tots as pandemic takes the play out of school

NEW DELHI: Activity boxes and digital dashboard for classes, teachers visiting home to teach three or four children and, of course, online lessons — the Covid-19 pandemic has brought a sea change in preschool education. And parents aren’t ungrateful for the experience offered by playschool companies.
As Tanveer Singh testified, enrolling his 3-year-old son in one such class has kept him engaged.

Said Gurugram resident Singh, whose son is now in nursery in St. Xavier’s School: “Due to the pandemic, my son was confined to the house and he would end up watching cartoons on TV. But I enrolled him in Klay Prep Schools & Day Care online preschool. The physical touch cannot be replicated and it was difficult to make him sit, but at least he could talk with children of his age and have fun showing off toys.”
Unlike Singh, Kalpana Bhardwaj, a doctor from Delhi based in Mumbai, opted for Kare@Home offered by the same company. Under this scheme, the teacher visits the student’s home.
“My daughter is anxious when strangers are around. When I learnt of Kare@Home, a group of us came together and a teacher came home to take classes with three other children. We rotated the classes in each other’s house. Within a few months I have seen my daughter’s confidence grow,” said Bhardwaj.
For many families, classes at home is a welcome intervention. Flinto Learning Solutions, which has FlintoclassTeacher@Home, started with 200 children in Chennai and Hyderabad.
After a brief halt due to the resurgence of Covid, Flinto has restarted home classes and registrations have been on a rise.
“Half of our revenue comes from the five cities of Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad,” said Arunprasad Durairaj, CEO, Flinto. “Along with numeracy-literacy skills, we also deliver some social experience to the students.”
Before the second wave of Covid, Kare@Home had around 450 children enrolled in Delhi-NCR.
The classes cost between Rs 10,000 and Rs.12,000 a month, with around two hours of classes a day, depending on the age group. The company resumed home classes from July.
Some companies are also delivering activity boxes for pre-school children. These are boxes filled with activities.
The activities teach different concepts and each box has a different theme.
The price of the boxes differs across companies and are mostly subscription-based.
AK Srikanth, CEO and founder of Klay, explained, “It is a playschool in a box in which activities are derived from the multiple intelligence system invented by Howard Gardner. We also have online resources to help parents use the box to teach their children. Some of these activities can be done alone, some require the presence of parents.”
Educationist Venita Kaul, professor emerita, Ambedkar University Delhi, feels depending on the activities, these boxes are better than online lessons.
“If there are activities promoting imaginative play, such as building blocks, puzzles, picture books and free play, it helps the children. If they involve parents, they boost bonding. These are good because it is not good to expose younger children to long screen times,” said Kaul.
Vibha Kumar, who has been running pre-school Little Creative Mind since 1992, also agreed that online classes were actually burdensome for tots.
“The attention span of children is short and the whole effort can get undone. Online education can also become addictive,” said Kumar.
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