Education ministry launches 'stay at home' calendar for upper primary students

The NCERT under the guidance of the Ministry of Human Resource Development has released an ‘alternative academic calendar’ for the upper primary level (Classes 6 to 8) to help students study during the lockdown.

 With an aim to keep students engaged and active during their stay at home through educational activities, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has released an alternative calendar for the upper primary level students (classes 6 to 8). The calendar has been made by National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), under the guidance of the MHRD, and was launched today by Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’.

On April 16, the union minister had released the alternative academic calendar for the primary stage.

Talking about the calendar, the minister said, that it has been launched to provide guidelines to teachers on the use of various online and social media tools available for imparting education to the students in fun-filled and interesting ways. 

Keeping in mind, that not everyone has access to the internet at their home or on mobile, for such students the teachers will send education materials, activities through SMS on mobile phones or through voice calls, he said.

The Minister said that very soon all the remaining classes i.e., IX to XII and subject areas will be covered under this calendar. This calendar will cater to the need of all children including Divyang children  (Children with Special Need)- link for Audiobooks, Radio programmes, Video programme will be included.

The calendar consists of a weekly plan that includes different 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 Union Territories.

The calendar also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, pre-vocational skills, etc. This Calendar includes activities related to four languages as subject areas, i.e., Hindi English, Urdu, and Sanskrit. 

The calendar provides various strategies to be adopted to reduce stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. The calendar includes a link for Chapter wise e-content available on the e-pathshala, NROER and DIKSHA portal of GoI.
 "This Calendar 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 also improving their learning outcomes getting school education at home," he said.

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