On Thursday, the HRD Minister released an alternative academic calendar of 8 weeks to keep students busy during the coronavirus global pandemic. Through this academic calendar, the HRD Ministry aims at engaging students in educational activities.
This academic calendar has been launched at the primary and upper primary stages. Under the guidance of MHRD, the calendar has been developed by NCERT.
The alternative academic calendar was released by the HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank. This calendar has been released by him at the primary stage for a period of eight weeks.
An Alternative Academic Calendar was released in April for the Primary Classes by the HRD Ministry. This calendar is accessible through radio, television, mobile, SMS, and the various social media.
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This has been kept in mind that many do not have the access to internet facilities, or they might not be familiar with the different social media tools like WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
A guide is inclusive of the calendar which will teach the parents and students. This will be done through voice call or the SMS on mobile phones. It is expected pf the parents that they will help the elementary stage students in the implementation of this calendar.
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It has been further asserted by the Union Minister that this calendar will cater to the needs of all children, including the specially-abled children. The calendar includes radio programs, audiobooks, and video programs.
The HRD Minister said that the calendar consists of weekly plans. These weekly plans have vivid activities that are related to a theme or chapter part of the syllabus. The themes are mapped with the outcomes with the help of the calendar. This has been done to facilitate the monitoring of the progress of the children for the parents and teachers.
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The calendar also covers experiential learning activities such as Physical Exercises, Arts Education, pre-vocational skills, yoga, etc. The calendar also contains subject-wise and class-wise activities. This will be in a tabular form and will include activities that are related to the four languages as subject areas.
Reduction of stress and anxiety among teachers, students, and parents will also be worked on by this calendar. The sequence of activities is not mandatory. The activities in the calendar are suggestive and prescriptive in nature.
Irrespective of the consequence, contextualization of the activities can be done by the parents and teachers to do those activities in which the interest of students lies in.
In this connection, the NCERT has started conducting live interactive sessions with students, parents, and teachers. These sessions are broadcasted from Monday to Saturday.
The timings for secondary classes are from 9:00 am to 10:30 am. The timings for the primary classes are 10:30 am to 12:00 pm. The timings for upper primary classes are 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. The timings for higher secondary classes are 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm.
The hands-on-activities are demonstrated in these live sessions in addition to interaction with the viewers.
