(a) the effects on the standard of education of students in the country particularly those residing in the rural areas as a result of Covid-19 pandemic;
(b) the schemes of the Government to mitigate these effects;
(c) whether the Government has launched any scheme/project for the establishment of educational
institutions providing online education in the educationally backward districts of the country; and
(d) if so, the details thereof and the funds earmarked for this purpose ?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
(SMT. ANNPURNA DEVI)
(a) to (d): Covid-19 was an unprecedented crisis across the world and has affected all the countries. The pandemic has led to severe disruption in normal life, including closure of schools.
Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. However, in order to ensure that every student including those residing in rural and educationally backward districts of the country, gets continued access to education, a multi-pronged approach has been adopted. A comprehensive initiative called PM e-VIDYA has been initiated as part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan on 17th May, 2020, which unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education. The initiative includes:
• DIKSHA (one nation, one digital platform) is the nation’s digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content for school education in states/UTs and QR coded Energized Textbooks for all grades are available on it. 35 of the 36 states and UTs have on boarded on DIKSHA platform and contextualised the content as per the local need.
• One earmarked Swayam Prabha TV channel per class from Class 1 to 12 (one class, one channel).
• Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast- Shiksha Vani.
• Special e-content for visually and hearing impaired developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/YouTube.
Further, an Alternate Academic Calendar has been prepared for providing learning solutions for grade 1 to 12 and ‘Students’ Learning Enhancement Guidelines’ prepared by NCERT suggest models for the following three types of scenarios to ensure that no child is deprived of reach of education:
a) Learning Enhancement during COVID-19 for students without digital devices;
b) Learning Enhancement during COVID-19 for students with limited accessibility to digital devices &
c) Learning Enhancement during COVID-19 for students with digital devices.
Also, PRAGYATA guidelines issued to States/UTs to facilitate continued education through various modes. The guidelines inter-alia includes situations where internet connectivity is not available or available with very less bandwidth where resources are shared through various platforms like television, radio etc that do not depend on internet.
Besides, the Ministry has undertaken a proactive initiative, named, ‘MANODARPAN’ covering a wide range of activities to provide psychosocial support to students, teachers and families for Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing during the COVID outbreak and beyond.
The Ministry had conducted a survey in the month of July, 2020 with the help of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to understand the scenario of Online Learning of school students in COVID-19 pandemic situation. The details of the survey and findings are given in Chapter – 3 of the Learning Enhancement guidelines, which may be accessed at the following links:
1. https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Learning_Enhancement_0.pdf
2. https://seshagun.gov.in/sites/default/files/update/Learning_Enhancement.pdf
3. https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/announcement/Learning_%20Enhancement_Guidelines.pdf
National Achievement Survey (NAS) is conducted to enable States/UTs to identify gaps in learning outcomes, and take remedial steps. NAS 2021 has been conducted on 12th November 2021.
The Central Government is constantly advising States/UTs through guidelines and meetings with respect to interventions for reducing impact of pandemic on education. The guidelines issued so far are given below:
Sl. Intervention Links of Guideline
1. Guidelines for Children of Migrant Labourers https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Migrant%20labour%20guideline.pdf
2. Guidelines for Out of School Children and Mitigation of Loss of Learning https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/guidelines_oosc.pdf
3. PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/pragyata-guidelines_0.pdf
4. Learning Enhancement Guidelines for Continuous Learning https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/announcement/Learning_%20Enhancement_Guidelines.pdf
5. Covid-19 Related Health and Safety Sop/Guidelines for School Re-Opening https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/SOP_Guidelines_for_reopening_schools.pdf
6. Covid Action Plan for School Education https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Covid_Action_Plan.pdf
7. Alternate Academic Calendar Secondary- https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Academic%20Calender%20-%20Secondary%20-%20Eng.pdf Primary- - https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/Eight_Weeks_AAC_Primary_%28English%29%5B1%5D_0.pdf
8. Guidelines for JNV –Residential Schools https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LAc4iKQTqTJkNVDGc5glEDsrDGdAXwC8/view
9. Guidelines for parents on Home Based Education https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/MoE_Home_Learning_Guidelines.pdf
10. Guidelines for orphaned Children In this regard, a joint DO letter No. 13-10/2021-IS-11 dated 16.06.2021 from Secretary DoSEL, MoE and Secretary, MWCD has been issued to all States and UTs.
11. Guidelines for developing E-content for CWSN https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/CWSN_E-Content_guidelines.pdf
12. CBSE competency-based assessment framework http://cbseacademic.nic.in/web_material/Manuals/Safal_handbook.pdf
13. NCTE Guidelines for TEIs https://ncte.gov.in/WebAdminFiles/RecentAnnouncement/0_20_08_2020_637335320672297662.pdf