Pakistan: Poor internet in Punjab leaves 34 million students' future at stake amid COVID-19

Examinations and results were marred due to the Covid-19 situation and a lack of proper measure to maintain internet services at the government level, reports The Express Tribune newspaper.

As per estimates, about 80 per cent of the province’s students complain about internet services, while the remaining 20% do not have access to the services. As a result, the educational future of almost all these students is at stake, the newspaper reported.

Punjab Information Technology Board spokesperson Ammar Chaudhry told the newspaper: “Providing or improving internet services is neither the job of the PITB (Punjab Information Technology Board) nor its responsibility.”

Shehryar Mohammad, a student who takes online classes, complained that this online education system had deprived students of academic abilities.

“Educational activities at the level of school education on radio and TV is not being provided according to the mental capacity of the students, nor is any question or answer repeated on it," he told the newspaper.

A teacher named Shahana Samina Yousuf told the newspaper that online lectures were practically useless unless there was a direct academic interaction between teachers and students.

“Teachers cannot judge the overall performance of all the students online. Students do not ask the key questions out of hesitation, which makes the academic interaction regressive," the teacher told the newspaper.