Amid COVID-19, over 240 million students affected: HRD minister promotes online education

Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokriyal 'Nishank released guidelines on digital education via online medium on Tuesday. Guidelines, namely 'PRAGYATA' were issued to improvise current online education system. Elaborating on initiative, Union Minister said, "Coronavirus pandemic caused closure of schools and affected over 240 million children across country."

Nishank underlined that though several steps have been taken so far to provide education to students, new methods were being introduced to improve quality of education through "a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school." PRAGYATA guidelines have been chalked from perspective of learners, with a focus on online education. se also provide a roadmap to enhance quality of education.

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PRAGYATA guidelines

Minister furr asserted that said guidelines will prove to be beneficial for all stakeholders, including teachers and parents. pointers issued also call for use of alternative NCERT academic calendar.  PRAGYATA is abbreviation for Plan- Review- Arrange- Guide- Yak(talk)- Assign- Track- Appreciate. se eight steps intend to guide planning and implementation of digital education in an efficient manner through examples.

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MoS HRD was also present at launch. Expressing his view on PRAGYATA, he said guidelines have been issued to ensure safety and academic welfare of students. guidelines issued by MHRD entail suggestions for administrators, school heads, teachers, parents and students on following areas:

• Need assessment
• Concerns while planning online and digital education like duration, screen time, inclusiveness, balanced online and offline activities, etc level-wise
• Modalities of intervention including resource curation, level-wise delivery, etc.
• Physical, mental health and wellbeing during digital education
• Cybersafety and ethical practices including precautions and measures for maintaining cyber safety
• Collaboration and convergence with various initiatives

Recommended school timing for students is- pre-primary t more than 30 minutes, Classes 1 to 8 t more than two sessions of 30-45 minutes each on days states/UTs decide to have online classes and for classes 9 to 12, t more than 4 sessions of 30-45 minutes each on days as decided by states/UTs.

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