-globalbihari bureau
New Delhi: Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ released on Thursday, an alternative academic calendar for schools developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
All the classes from I-XII and subject areas will be covered under this calendar, Pokhariyal said.
The new calendar would be disseminated through DTH Channels and also conducting video conferencing with SCERTs, Directorates of Education, SCERTs, Kendriya Vidyalay Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, CBSE, State School Education Boards, etc., the minister said.
The new academic calendar is developed to engage students meaningfully during their stay at home during lockdown because of COVID-19 pandemic.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. It includes link for Chapter wise e-content available on the e-pathshala, NROER and DIKSHA portal of Government of India.
The calendar allows educational activities at home with the help of parents and teachers. It 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 to learn even while at home.
The new calendar has taken into account, the varying levels of access to such tools-Mobile, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media. The fact that many students and teachers may not have internet facility in the mobile, or may not be able to use different social media tools- such as whatsapp, facebook, twitter, google, etc., the calendar guides teachers to further guide parents and students through SMS on mobile phones or mobile call. Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this Calendar.
The new calendar caters to the need of all children including Divyang children(Children with Special Need)- links for Audio books, Radio programmes, Video programme are included. It further contains week-wise plan consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme/chapter taken from syllabus or textbook. It maps the themes with the learning outcomes so as to facilitate teachers/parents to assess the progress in the learning of children and also to go beyond textbooks.
Pokhriyal said the calendar also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, pre-vocational skills, etc.
The Minister said that all the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory. Teachers and parents may opt to contextualise the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence.
