Students to be promoted without exam. (Representational image)
“As you already know, we have developed an alternative academic calendar for four weeks for students which has been uploaded on the NCERT website. We are currently in the process of developing the calendar for the next eight weeks and will also extend it for the whole year,” said Anita Karwal, Secretary for Education and Literacy, MHRD and the former Chairperson of the Central Board for Secondary Education (CBSE), at a webinar on Friday.
Formally titled “Overcoming the COVID 19 challenge and beyond”, the two-day long webinar organised by Ashoka University aims to facilitate discussions among leading educators, teachers and government officials on the future of school education in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Karwal, who delivered the keynote address for the webinar, said that the MHRD is working to develop the four-week long alternative academic calendar for schoolgoing children into a year- long calendar.
The NCERT alternative academic calendar contains learning outcomes for subjects prescribed for each grade level. “Apart from the learning outcomes, the calendar is special as it suggests activities and themes which can be used by students and teachers to meet these outcomes. Furthermore, e- resources are linked to each activity suggested,” said Karwal at the webinar.
As for those who do not have access to these e-resources, Karwal explained that since most of the activities suggested in the calendar can be done using resources available at home, all students will be able to participate in these regardless of the digital infrastructure available to them.
Apart from the academic calendar, the secretary stated that the MHRD is also likely to launch the ‘Manodarpan’ portal by next week. ‘Manodarpan’ refers to initiative by the MHRD which seeks to offer psychological support and counselling to teachers, students and parents.
“When we started working towards our response to COVID 19, the first thing we thought of is the mental well-being of children. We came out with Manodarpan which will be launched possibly next week,” said Karwal. The Manodarpan portal will include a central counselling helpline which can be accessed by all students across the country and a national directory of coubsellora as well. “As part of the phase 2 of Manodarpan, we will also launch an interactive chat platform for counselling,” added Karwal.
There are more than 24 crore schools enrolled in the school system of India, whose education was severely affected by the pandemic. Karwal said that as schools re-open across the country, each stakeholder will have to adapt to significant changes in order to remain safe while continuing their education.
“We are aware that even when schools do re open, the need for social distancing will remain, therefore there will have to be some adjustments in the way teachers and students interact in classrooms. We cannot guarantee this change will occur immediately, it will take some time for everyone to adapt,” said Karwal.