New Delhi: The Union HRD Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ , interacted with the parents across the country through webinar in view of the circumstances arising out of COVID-19. The Minister, through his webinar interaction, informed all the parents about various campaigns and schemes for online education being run by the Ministry. He said that the Ministry is concerned about the academic activities of its students and that is why we have implemented various ongoing schemes on a war footing which will benefit 33 crore students of the country.
While thanking the parents of the country, the Union Minister said that the country is going through an unprecedented crisis at this time. This time becomes even more difficult for parents because they must have been worrying about their children’s studies and future. Shri Pokhriyal assured the parents that the Ministry of HRD is fully committed to provide quality education to students for their bright future. Union Minister said that in this direction, the Ministry is trying to continue the education of all students through e-pathshala, National Repository of Open Educational Resources (NROER), Swayam, DTH channel Swayam Prabha etc.
Shri Pokhriyal said that to strengthen the online education policy, we have launched the Bharat Padhe Online Campaign in which suggestions were sought from students, parents and teachers from across the country. We had received more than 10,000 suggestions on which the Ministry would soon come up with guidelines.
The Union Minister, while telling the parents about Vidyadan 2.0, said that as part of this campaign, the Ministry has urged the academicians and educational organizations of the country to develop and contribute content as per syllabus on various e-learning platforms. Shri Pokhriyal hopes that very soon all the students will get a lot of course material under it.
During the interaction, the parents posed questions on some crucial issues confronting their wards. On the question of the availability of NCERT books, the Minister said that the NCERT has sent books to almost all the states and very soon these books will be available to the students.
Responding to the question of conducting the remaining exams of CBSE 10th and 12th, the Union Minister said that examination in 29 core subjects will be conducted at the first possible opportunity .
In response to the question of how to reduce the loss of students’ education in the lock-down, he said that the education of students is continuing through the various online platforms of the ministry. He informed that more than 80,000 courses are available only on the ministry’s DIKSHA platform. He also informed that E-learning in the country has witnessed an appreciable upsurge during the past few weeks.
In response to a question, the Union Minister said that to avoid loss of education due to lock-down, an alternative calendar has been created by NCERT. CBSE has also been directed to issue a new academic calendar. Apart from this, the Union Minister answered many questions related to the career of the students, exam related and others.
During the webinar, HRD Minister also informed that the Ministry is constantly in touch with the Education Ministers and Education Secretaries of all the states and he will be interacting with them through Video Conferencing tomorrow i.e. 28th April, 2020 to discuss issues like handling COVID-19, mid day meal, Samagra Shiksha, etc to ensure that students continue their studies in these times.
Shri Pokhriyal thanked all the parents for joining this webinar and said that next week he will communicate with the students through the webinar. Before concluding his interaction with parents, the Minister thanked all the parents for patiently following the lockdown instructions during the difficult time, following the guidelines of Social Distancing.