Published 22:46 IST, July 2nd 2020
To keep students engaged, HRD Minister releases 8 weeks' alternative academic calendar
To engage students meaningfully through educational activities at home with help of their parents and teachers, HRD launched an alternative academic calendar
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Amid COVID19 scare, the Human Resources and Development (HRD) ministry on Thursday to engage students meaningfully through educational activities at home with the help of their parents and teachers launched an alternative academic calendar at primary and upper primary stage. The calendar have been developed by the NCERT under the guidance of the MHRD.
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Union Minister for HRD Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' released the alternative academic calendar for a time period of eight weeks for primary stage. Earlier four weeks Alternative Academic Calendar for Primary Classes was released in April.
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Speaking on the occasion the Union Minister said, "This calendar provides guidelines to teachers on the use of various technological tools and social media tools available for imparting education in fun-filled, interesting ways, which can be used by learner and parents also."
The calendar can be accessed through Mobile, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media.
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The fact that many might not have access to internet facility in, or might not be familiar with different social media tools- such as whatsapp, facebook, twitter, google, etc. have also been kept in mind. The calendar includes a guide which teaches parents and students through the medium of SMS on mobile phones or voice call. Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this Calendar. The union Minister further asserted that this calendar caters to the need of all children including specially abled students. It includes audio books, radio programmes and video programme.
He said that the calendar contains weekly plans consisting of vivid activities, with reference to theme or chapter mentioned in the syllabus or textbook. The calendar also maps the themes with the outcomes, in a bid to facilitate teachers and parents to monitor the progress made by children.
It also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, pre-vocational skills, etc. This Calendar contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms and includes activities related to four languages as subject areas, i.e., Hindi English, Urdu and Sanskrit.
This calendar also works on reducing stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. All the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory. Teachers and parents may opt to contextualize the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence.
NCERT has already started having live interactive sessions with students, parents and teachers in this connection. The sessions are broadcasted from Monday to Saturday. For secondary classes 9:00 am to 10:30 am , for primary classes from 10:30 am to 12:00pm, for upper primary classes from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm and higher secondary classes from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm. In addition to interacting with the viewer, hands on activities along with teaching of topics are demonstrated in these live sessions This will empower our students, teachers, school principals and parents to find out positive ways to deal with Covid-19 using on-line teaching-learning resources and in the attainment of learning outcomes.
22:46 IST, July 2nd 2020