NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, MARCH 18
To compensate for the lost teaching hours in over 33,000 government primary schools in the state, the Gujarat education department has decided to start live and recorded lessons for Class VII-IX and Class XI through private television channels from Thursday. The education institutes in the state have been closed down for two weeks since Monday, March 16 as a precautionary measure to prevent COVID-19.
Also, for revision ahead of the annual examinations, nearly 1.5 lakh government primary teachers will reach out to all individual students and hand over worksheets, all 51 weekly tests (periodical assessment tests) and their answer sheets conducted in the second semester to Class III to VIII students.
During this process of door-to-door reaching out to students starting Wednesday, these teachers will also publicise and make the beneficiaries aware of this initiative of lessons to be taught through television.
While talks are almost final with a Gujarati channel for telecast rights for two hours between 2 to 4 pm daily from March 18-29, other implementation details are being worked out in meetings by senior officials of the state education department. Instructions are likely to be passed to all district education officers by later in the day today.
“Students cannot just sit idle at home during this crucial time of the academic session. This entire alternative is being planned out to make up for the lost teaching days and also to avoid any delay in the next academic session. Further, planning will be chalked out given the situation that develops in the coming days,” confirmed secretary education, Vinod Rao.
This year, the state education department had also announced to introduce a major change from academic session 2020-21. Unlike the usual practice of starting in June, it will start in April.
The state education department had earlier announced the annual examinations for primary classes to start from March 26. Tentatively these are re-scheduled on March 30 now. Nearly ten scheduled teaching days are lost due to this shutdown
However, the state government on Sunday had announced a complete suspension of teaching work in all education institutes including schools, colleges, tuition classes and even Anganwadi centres for two weeks; March 16-29. Though all teaching and non-teaching staff members are required to report to their duties.
“We are also exploring other platforms like Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG). Though the telecast through BISAG can be viewed with the help of technological setup on screens installed at schools only which is usually done otherwise through our education channels ‘Vande Gujarat’, we are technologically exploring if that can also be possible with the help of Jio mobile phone and DD dish,” revealed a senior education official privy to the development. Vande Gujarat channel is watched in classrooms.
The lessons for Class VII to IX would be for three subjects-Mathematics, Science and English.
“While we have a few recorded lessons from our state resource group experts we will have more of live lessons, both of 22 minutes each (excluding the break time of a 30-minute slot). During a day all three classes will be catered to,” another official revealed on the condition of anonymity.
As per the academic calendar, if the schools were not closed down, the students will be taking their last chapters of each subject just ahead of their annual examinations.
Courtesy: The Indian Express
