Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia Wednesday said that Delhi education functionaries are monitoring the current situation closely to see how soon schools in the capital can be reopened, especially since the CBSE board examinations are set to begin on May 4.
He said this while announcing an international conference organised by the Delhi government on school education to begin on January 11.
“There is a lot of brainstorming happening. We are mostly waiting to see how the vaccine will be available. Once it is provided to frontline workers, how and by when it will be available for ordinary people,” he said.
The education conference he announced will take place over seven days with 21 panelists from seven countries.
“In the whole country, the whole world, education has been badly affected by Covid. We now know that business will not be as usual in a post-Covid world after the vaccine, especially in education… There will be changes because of technology as well as necessity. But no one has a sure-shot solution to questions of how teaching, exams, practicals, assessment will happen — not administrators or governments or teachers or education experts. Now is the time to brainstorm. We need to plan about our schools in a post-Covid era just as we are planning about the Covid vaccination,” said Sisodia.
Schools across India shut down in mid-March and have been functioning through remote means. While schools in some states such as Assam and Karnataka have now opened even for primary children, in Delhi they are yet to open for students of any class.
Among the panelists announced by Sisodia are Lant Pritchett, former Professor at Harvard Kennedy Schools and presently with Oxford University; Sebastian Suggate, senior lecturer in education at the University of Regensburg; Rukmini Banerji, CEO Pratham; Yamini Aiyar, CEO Centre for Policy Research, educationist Vimala Ramachandran; and early education expert Venita Kaul.
A report by the Boston Consulting Group on the Delhi government’s education initiatives will also be launched at the conference.
According to a government statement, “There would be daily two-hour-long online panel discussion… on five different themes related to curriculum, pedagogy, governance and other important issues related to children’s learning, teachers professional development and motivation and school management.”