Councils Buy Thousands of £3,500 Robots Which ‘Represent’ Anxious Schoolchildren in Classrooms so They Can Join Lessons From Home

 Kids too anxious to go to school can now send a £3,500 robot instead, letting them sit in on lessons from home. The Mail has the story:

The AV1 robot has a camera, microphone and speaker enabling a child at home to see, hear and speak to classmates via an app.

More than 2,000 are being used nationwide, many by children with “emotionally based school avoidance”, or EBSA – a chronic refusal to go to school driven by anxiety.

Teachers place the robot on the child’s usual desk and ask them questions as though they were there, while the pupil at home can simply reply, as well as swipe their screen to turn the robot’s head through 360 degrees.

A ‘whisper mode’ lets the absent pupil speak quietly to a classmate sitting beside the robot, rather than letting the whole room hear.

The camera is one-way, so the pupil at home can see and hear the lesson without being seen....<<<Read More>>>...