Launch of online back-up tutorials a boon for pupils

The launch of Duroosi, online tutorial courses for public school students of Grades 11 and 12, has opened up yet another dimension in e-learning in the U.A.E., commented a local daily. It offers the perfect opportunity, in the form of back-up tutorials, for students who missed regular classes or need to revise and re-revise courses. With the advantage of being an ever-present source of information, it can enable a student to fill the gaps in his knowledge, aiding his pursuit of excellence. Apart from this, it also a potential substitute for private tutors, who come at a high price, and often destabilise household budgets, not to speak of the differing quality of tutorship they offer, the "Gulf News" wrote in its today's editorial. With teacher-tested tutorials, Duroosi ensures that the quality of teaching online is uniformly high. These positives aside, an important concern this initiative raises is the probable temptation it creates in a student to play truant with classes as he is assured of catching up with the course online any time he wishes. Parents, therefore, need to be doubly attentive to their children's attitude and discipline in this regard, the paper anticipated. The effectiveness of attending regular classes for the educational development of a student has been established beyond contention. While online courses or distance learning is a parallel domain in the pedagogical world, and a wholly different aspect of learning, online tutorials that act as an additional resource are merely that they are not a substitute for classroom learning. Knowing this difference is what will make initiatives like Duroosi maximise their purpose, according to the paper.