Education Minister releases the NCERT 8 week alternative academic calendar for secondary students

In order to engage students meaningfully during their stay at home due to COVID-19 through educational activities at home with the help of their parents and teachers, the alternative academic calendars for students, parents and teachers for all the classes I-XII has been developed by the NCERT under the guidance of the Ministry of Education.

Sep 15, Delhi: Alternative Academic Calendar (AAC) for four weeks and the next eight weeks for primary and upper primary stages had already been released. AAC for secondary and higher secondary stages for four weeks had also been released earlier by the Union Minister of Education. Now, AAC for the next eight weeks for the secondary stage has been released by the Union Minister of Education Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ virtually today.

Speaking on the occasion Shri Pokhriyal said that the 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 phone, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media. The Minister highlighted that many of us may not have internet facility in the mobile phone, or may not be able to use different social media tools- such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., the calendar guides teachers to further help parents and students through SMS on mobile phones or through voice call. Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this Calendar.

This calendar caters to the need of all children including Divyang children (Children with Special Need)- link for Audiobooks, Radio programmes, Video programme will be included, Shri Pokhriyal added.

The calendar contains week-wise plan 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. This calendar also gives space to the strategies of reducing 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 Government of India.

All the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory. Teachers and parents may opt to contextualise the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence.

NCERT has already 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, every class from I-X gets one-hour live session in a week in a time slot of 2.00-4.00 PM. For classes XI and XII, the weekly duration for live sessions is two hours for each class. In addition to interacting with the viewer, hands-on activities along with the teaching of topics are demonstrated in these live sessions. Features of AAC had been disseminated through video conferencing with SCERTs/SIEs, Directorates of Education, Kendriya Vidyalay Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and CBSE. This calendar for eight weeks for the secondary stage is placed on NCERT website for dissemination across the states/UTs.

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 also improving their learning outcomes getting school education at home.