Education During COVID-19: NCERT Develops New Alternative Academic Calendar For Primary Classes

New Delhi: The Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Thursday emphasised that the teaching-learning process should continue during COVID-19.

He released a new alternative academic calendar for primary classes. Developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the calendar contains detailed guidelines for teachers on the “use of technology & social media tools,” Pokhriyal said.

The calendar contains eight-week subject wise teaching-learning directives and is in continuation to the previous one released in April.

“The calendar further aims to empower our students, teachers, school principals & parents with positive ways to deal with COVID-19 via online teaching-learning resources and achieve the best possible learning outcomes,” Pokhriyal said on social media.

An official release said the alternative calendar has been designed with an aim to “engage students meaningfully during their stay at home due to COVID-19.”

The calendar contains an eight-week study plan for different subjects of the primary classes, along with activities, resources, and links to different e-content prepared by the HRD ministry, the statement added.

“The calendar contains a week-wise plan consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme or chapter taken from syllabus or textbook. Most importantly, it maps the themes with the learning outcomes,” the statement said.

“The purpose of mapping of themes with learning outcomes is to facilitate teachers or 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….” the statement added.

Detailed activities for Mathematics, Geography, Hindi, and Urdu for Classes 1 and 2; and Mathematics, Geography, Hindi, Urdu, and Environmental Studies for Classes 3 to 5 along with Art Education and Health and Physical Education have been included in the calendar.