A new list of measures was announced on Wednesday by the Students’ Learning Enhancement Guidelines, under the Ministry of Education. Some of these include setting up a helpline at a community centre with the help of Panchayati raj and forming a team of volunteers to help students without access to digital resources. The guidelines, formulated by the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), were released by Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal.
These guidelines are made to emphasize the community working closely with a school to get learning material such as workbooks, worksheets delivered to children by teachers and volunteers. It also suggests setting up television at a community center to teach local students. All these measures are to be undertaken while maintaining social distancing norms.
The recommendations made in the guidelines are based on a survey undertaken by the NCERT on the accessibility of digital resources in the schools of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and also on Continuous Learning Plan prepared for states and Union territories by the Ministry of Education.
The guidelines will help children, who do not have digital resources to get learning opportunities at their homes with their teachers or volunteers. It will also help in efforts to overcome the learning deficiencies of all those students who are studying at home through various alternative mediums like radio, television, or smartphone. These sets of guidelines and models are suggested for three types of situations. The first one, in which students do not have any digital resources. The second one, in which students have limited digital resources available. Lastly, in which students have digital resources available for online education.
Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March when the Centre announced a national lockdown as part of measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. While several restrictions have eased, schools and colleges continue to be closed. The prolonged closure of educational institutions has necessitated a shift from classroom teaching to online learning.
