Coronavirus has heavily disrupted the education system in India. The schools have shifted to online classes where teachers are conducting classes through various online video conferencing platforms. However, while doing so, the teachers as well as the students face huge difficulties in terms of the format and duration of the online classes.
To address this problem, the Union Minister of Human Resource Development (HRD) on Tuesday, July 14 announced guidelines for online classes. HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ recommended a cap on screen time for students. He said that the online classes for pre-primary students should not be for more than 30 minutes.
HRD Minister also asserted that two online sessions of up to 45 minutes will be held each for classes 1-8, and four sessions for classes 9-12.
Recommended screen time by the government:
1) Pre-Primary: On a given day for interacting with parents and guiding them, not more than 30 minutes
2) Classes 1 to 12: Recommended to adopt/adapt the alternative academic calendar of NCERT at http://ncert.nic.in/aac.html
3) Classes 1 to 8: Online synchronous learning may be undertaken for not more than two sessions of 30-45 minutes each on the days the states/UTs decide to have online classes for primary sections
4) Classes 9 to 12: Online synchronous learning may be undertaken for not more than four sessions of 30-45 minutes each on the days as decided by States/UTs.
Around 240 million children are enrolled in schools in India. Due to the rising cases of coronavirus, the government has asked the schools to remain closed till July 30. To compensate for the loss of learning, the schools need to remodel themselves to suit online classes. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ also emphasized that the will need to introduce a suitable method of delivering quality education through a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school.
