Vishnu Karthik sounds unusually upbeat for someone who’s taken eight back-to-back 1.5-hour training sessions for teachers. As the director of India’s Heritage chain of schools, Karthik’s been in mission mode, trying to get teachers acclimatised to a few weeks, or even months, of taking online classes.
“Teachers are also on the frontline of this [Covid-19] crisis. I’ve been telling them we’re not just content providers, we’re now caregivers,” he says.
Karthik first got wind of school closures in Hong Kong in late January, and Heritage acted quickly to shut four branches across New Delhi and nearby Gurugram, even before the official government order came.