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 the online medium on Tuesday. Guidelines, namely 'PRAGYATA' were issued to improvise the current online education system. Elaborating on the initiative, the Union Minister said, "Coronavirus pandemic caused the closure of schools and affected over 240 million children across the country."

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

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PRAGYATA guidelines

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

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MoS HRD was also present at the launch. Expressing his view on PRAGYATA, he said the guidelines have been issued to ensure the safety and academic welfare of the students. The guidelines issued by MHRD entail suggestions for administrators, school heads, teachers, parents and students on the 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 not more than 30 minutes, Classes 1 to 8 not more than two sessions of 30-45 minutes each on the days the states/UTs decide to have online classes and for classes 9 to 12, not more than 4 sessions of 30-45 minutes each on the days as decided by states/UTs.

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