In an effort to engage students meaningfully during their stay at home due to COVID-19 through educational activities with the help of their parents and teachers, the alternative academic calendars for students, parents and teachers at primary and upper primary stage have been developed by the NCERT under the guidance of the MHRD.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank released Alternative Academic Calendar for eight weeks for primary stage in New Delhi on Thursday. Earlier, four weeks Alternative Academic Calendar for Primary Classes was released by Pokhriyal in April 2020, a PIB release stated.
"Launched an 8-week Alternative Academic Calendar for the primary stage today. This Calendar contains detailed guidelines for teachers on the use of technology & social media tools to impart education while the students are at home. http://ncert.nic.in/aac.html," Nishank tweeted.
Speaking on the occasion, the Union minister said that this Calendar 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, parents and teachers even while at home. However, it has taken into account the varying levels of access to such tools-Mobile, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media.
The fact that many of us 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 through voice call. Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this Calendar.
Nishank further said that this calendar caters to the needs of all children including Divyang children (Children with Special Need). It includes links for Audio books, Radio programmes and Video programmes.
He said that the calendar contains week-wise plans consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme/chapter taken from syllabus or textbook. Most importantly, it maps the themes with the learning outcomes.
The purpose of mapping of themes with learning outcomes is to facilitate teachers/parents to assess the progress in the learning of children and also to go beyond textbooks.
The activities given in the calendar focus on learning outcomes and can thus be achieved through any resource including the textbooks children are using in their state or UT.
It also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, pre-vocational skills, etc. This Calendar contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms. This Calendar includes activities related to four languages as subject areas, i.e., Hindi English, Urdu and Sanskrit.
The new calendar also gives space to the strategies of reducing stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. Calendar includes link for Chapter wise e-content available on the e-pathshala, NROER and DIKSHA portal of GoI.
All the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory. Teachers and parents may opt to contextualize the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence.
NCERT has started having live interactive sessions with students, parents and teachers through the TV channel Swayam Prabha (Kishore munch)( available through Free DTH channel 128, Dish TV Channel # 950, SunDirect #793, Jio TV, Tatasky #756, Airtel Channel #440, Videocon Channel # 477), Kishore Manch App(can be downloaded from play store) and youtube live (NCERT Official Channel).
Daily Monday to Saturday these sessions are telecast for secondary 9:00 am to 10:30 am, for primary classes from 10:30 am to 12:00pm, for upper primary classes from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm and higher secondary classes from 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm. In addition to interacting with the viewer, hands on activities along with teaching of topics are demonstrated in these live sessions
This calendar has been shared with SCERTs/SIEs, Directorates of Education, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, CBSE, State School Education Boards, etc. A video conferencing has also been conducted with all the SCERTs on the implementation of Academic Calendar.
This will empower our students, teachers, school principals and parents to find out positive ways to deal with Covid-19 using on-line teaching-learning resources and in the attainment of learning outcomes.
