Background:

• COVID-19 pandemic has led to secure disruptions in normal life, including closure of schools.
• It has impacted over 240 million children of the country who are enrolled in schools. Extended school closures may cause loss of learning.
• To mitigate the impact of the pandemic, schools will not only have to remodel and reimagine the way teaching and learning have happened so far, but will also need to introduce a suitable method of delivering quality education through a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school.

What’s in the news?

• The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)  has released PRAGYATA guidelines for digital education.
• These guidelines, prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), are only advisory in nature, and State governments have been asked to build on them and formulate their own rules, based on local needs.

About PRAGYATA guidelines: 

• It is developed from the perspective of learners, with a focus on online/blended/digital education for students who are presently at home due to lockdown.
• These guidelines on Digital/ Online Education  provide a roadmap or pointers for carrying forward online education to enhance the quality of education.
• The guidelines will be relevant and useful for a diverse set of stakeholders including school heads, teachers, parents, teacher educators and students. 
• The guidelines stress upon the use of an alternative academic calendar of NCERT, for both, learners having access to digital devices and learners having limited or no access.
• The PRAGYATA guidelines include eight steps of online/ digital learning that is, Plan- Review- Arrange- Guide- Yak (talk)- Assign- Track- Appreciate. These steps guide the planning and implementation of digital education step by step with examples.

The guidelines outlines suggestions for administrators, school heads, teachers, parents and students on the following areas:

• • Need assessment
  • Concerns while planning online and digital education like duration, screen time, inclusiveness, balanced online and offline activities etc level wise
  • Modalities of intervention including resource curation, level wise delivery etc.
  • Physical, mental health and wellbeing during digital education
  • Cyber safety and ethical practices including precautions and measures for maintaining cyber safety
  • Collaboration and convergence with various initiatives

Way Forward:

• While digital or online education cannot replace classroom learning, it has some advantages. It allows flexible and personalized learning at the speed of the learner and one can continuously augment and expand content through digital means.
• The rapid increase in internet penetration and various government initiatives such as the Digital India campaign have created a conducive environment for moving towards digital education.
• This shall be complemented by the recent launch of PM e-Vidya by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), a national campaign which will unify all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education.