Panaji: Progressive Front of Goa (PFG) in their letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prepared a roadmape on “rethink of education” during the pandemic.
This is what they have suggested:
PANDEMIC IMPACT ON EDUCATION SECTOR:
Since December, 2019, the whole world is facing the consequences of COVID-19. In India the impact of COVID-19 is somewhere from February, 2020 and due to which the Govt. of India had to declare the total lock down w. e. f. 25th March, 2020 up to 14th April and further extended from 15th April to 04th May, 2020 and thereafter the lockdown was slowly relaxed but there has been several restrictions on the part of the people. Recently due to second wave, if not total lockdown, there are several restrictions in different parts of the country depending upon the severity of the pandemic from state to state and from locality to locality and we are unaware as to when the country will be free of the pandemic.
This has adverse impact on the social life, industries, business and commerce, productions, Export-Import, Tourism, Transport, Education, etc. The system of education right from Pre-Primary to University level including School Education, University Education, Technical Education, Professional Education, Research, etc. has been totally collapsed over last almost fourteen months. During the academic year, 2019-20 at least the classes were conducted and the impact was only on the conduct of some internal exams of the institutions and public exams conducted by the institutions.
Unfortunately during the academic year, 2020-21, no physical classes could be conducted though online classes were conducted; there were several limitations of internet connectivity as well as gadgets with the students including purchase of data by the students as well as the teachers. To add to it, even the public exams could not be conducted adding misery of uncertainty as well as psycho-emotional problems to the students since they cannot meet their classmates, colleagues, friends, teachers, etc. and so also they are deprived of participation on sports and games, competitions, cultural activities, Music and several other life skills imparted in the institutions. We are unaware as to how long the present situation would continue.
THE CHANGES TO BE INCORPORATED IN CURRICULUM, SYLLABI, TEXT BOOKS & EVALUATION
Under the above circumstances, time has come to re-think about the whole system of education and it’s several other aspects. Here follows few points to be pondered upon and take further decision:
- The entire curriculum and syllabi should be re-designed for Self Learning with a provision of Core contents for each class which is to be carried forward at least up to Std Xth so that the students do not forget the most essential contents.
- The Text Books for all the levels and also for the various courses including technical and professional be redesigned as self learning material.
- The Guide, Digests, Work books by any private publishers should be banned to encourage self learning among the students right from Std. IIIrd. Otherwise parents and students purchase as readymade material which kills the initiative for Self Learning.
- Gyan Darshan should be converted as dedicated national channel for education for teaching learning purpose at least for twelve hours per day during all working days covering the syllabi in all the subjects from Class IIIrd to XIIth including emphasis on Life Skills.
- The periodic internal assessment and evaluation to be done under Open Book Examination for which the pattern for setting of Question Papers should be revised.
- The students should be guided for Self Learning, Self Assessment, Peer Assessment, etc. and also should be encouraged for Reading, Supplementary Reading, Reference Work, Use of Dictionaries in various languages, General Knowledge, etc.
- The Talent Search Examination should be introduced for each of the classes from Std. IVth to Std. IXth and Std. XIth so as to make the students familiarise with the various entrance exams to be conducted after Std. XIIth.
- The National Talent Search Exam for Std. Xth and similar other exams be continued.
- The Talent search Exams should have negative assessment so as to prepare the students for various national and international competitive exams.
- Grading of the institutions to be done on the basis of the performance of the students in such Talent Search Exams instead of performance in SSC/HSSC.
- All the monitory incentives to the students should be linked to the performance in the Talent Search Exams.
- The online classes should be banned to the students up to Class IV due to possibility of health related issues and particularly of vision. However videos on dance, play, informal learning leading to formal learning should be sent to the parents of these students so that they can guide the students properly.
- Digital library be started and the graded books including dictionaries in the various languages as graded according to the level/class of the students be made available.
- Since all the students are at home and in many cases even the working parents may not be at home, the students have developed psycho-emotional problems and therefore special dedicated helpline for counselling the students should be introduced and child psychologist, adolescent psychologist, adult psychologist according to the stage of the child is most essential.
- Proper guidelines should be issued to the parents regarding the learning, tackling of psycho-emotional and behavioural issues.
- At present the distribution of the Mid Day Meal (MDM) is adversely affected. However, the raw material is being supplied to the parents in two instalments at least in the state of Goa i.e. half yearly and therefore the raw materials supplied to the parents is likely to sold out in open market. It is therefore requested that this MDM material be supplied monthly so that parents can cook and serve it to the students.
- Since the teachers are at the heart of the system of education, almost all the teachers use online mode for teaching the students as well as to contact the students and the parents for the follow-up purpose. In view of this it is requested to compensate the teachers of all levels for the purchase of the data.
The following are the additional suggestions for the serious implementation of the various ongoing teaching-learning modalities:
1) Teaching should be activity based. Even with network issues, this can be done by preparing videos / demo lessons which could be shared on WhatsApp by teachers to teach life skill activities based on concepts taught in the particular grade level for that subject.
2) Teachers are already trained to do lesson plan but more emphasis must be given to plan objectives and achieve them using practical applications in daily life for each concept taught in class
3) Assessment must be done continuously as a ongoing process as small part of portion gets completed and report must highlight what concepts are learnt by the students monthly rather than using pen paper test. Use CCE i.e. Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation method.
4) Every child is unique and different with his/ her own potential. Assessment report must highlight what the student has learnt keeping in mind the learning goals as per the grade level in the given syllabus. Teachers must then redesign their teaching to bridge the gap of learning to complete the particular grade level syllabus at the end of academic year.
5) For Std. Xth, online exams can be conducted by uploading the question paper on WhatsApp/ Google Classroom through open book reviews. Through this method, due justification will be done for studious students and other students as well.
6) NEP, 2020 as well as the previous policies have several highlights and many provisions are being implemented over the years. We suggest that all the provisions should be implemented seriously in the education system from the ensuing academic year in phased manner. Accordingly, intensive training should be given to the teachers so that the Educational institutions should be trained and geared up to adopt it at the earliest.
