HRD minister releases alternative academic calendar for Class 9 and 10
Says alternative academic calendar for Classes XI and XII and subject areas will be released very soon
New Delhi, May 2 (MExN): Union Human Resource Development on Saturday released an alternative academic calendar for class 9 and 10 students in New Delhi.
The calendar is developed by NCERT, released by Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’, Union Minister of Human Resource Development, has been designed for an effective week-wise planning for each subject.
The alternative calendar has to be followed by the teachers, students and parents to cover the syllabus during the lockdown, a press release from the ministry via PIB stated.
The Minister 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, it said.
However, it has taken into account, the varying levels of access to such tools-Mobile, Radio, Television, SMS and various social media.
Pokhriyal further said that for those without access to internet facility or without ability to use different social media tools- such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc., the Calendar guides teachers to further guide parents and students through SMS on mobile phones or through voice call.
Parents are expected to help elementary stage students to implement this calendar, the release added.
The Minister informed that alternative academic calendar for Classes XI and XII and subject areas will be released very soon.
He added that this calendar will cater to the need of all children including Divyang children(Children with Special Need). The link for Audio books, Radio programmes, Video programme will be included.
The calendar contains week-wise plan consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme/chapter taken from syllabus or textbook and also 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.
According to the Minister, the Calendar covers experiential learning activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, yoga, etc. It contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms and includes activities related to four languages as subject areas - Hindi English, Urdu and Sanskrit.
He further informed that this calendar also gives space to the strategies of reducing stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. The calendar includes link for Chapter wise e-content available on the e-pathshala, NROER and DIKSHA portal of GoI, the release added.
The Ministry release however added that all the given activities are suggestive in nature, not prescriptive, nor is the sequence mandatory.
Teachers and parents may opt to contextualize the activities and do those activities that the student shows interest in, irrespective of the sequence, it added.
