COVID-19 pandemic has led to closure of schools and has impacted over 240 million children of the country who are enrolled in schools. Extended school closures may cause loss of learning. Consequently, to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, schools need to introduce a suitable method of delivering quality education through a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school. Hence, Union Human Resource Development Minister Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ released PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education through online medium in New Delhi on 14th July 2020.
What are Pragyata Guidelines for digital education ?
Union Government has developed Pragyata guidelines 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 also 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.
These guidelines for school heads and teachers describe the need assessment, planning and steps to implement digital education while ensuring cyber safety and privacy measures. It also outlines the support to be provided to students with special needs. Main emphasis is on balanced online and offline activities keeping the screen time as an essential parameter in accordance with the level of students.
For parents, the guideline helps to understand the need for physical, mental health and wellbeing along with the cyber safety measures for children at home. Guidelines for physical health and mental wellness is stressed across the guidelines for all stakeholders measures so that children do not get overly stretched or stressed, or get affected negatively (postural defects, ophthalmic issues, and other physical problems) owing to prolonged use of digital devices. Also it provides sufficient Do’s and Don’ts regarding ergonomics and cyber safety.
Pragyata Guidelines: Steps for Digital and Online Education
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.
Recommended screen time
| Class | Recommendation |
| Pre Primary | On a given day for interacting with parents and guiding them, not more than 30 minutes. |
| Classes 1 to 12 | Recommended to adopt/adapt the alternative academic calendar of NCERT at http://ncert.nic.in/aac.html |
| 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 |
| 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. |
Way- Ahead
PM e-Vidya National Campaign has been recently launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), which will unify all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education. This includes,
- DIKSHA (one nation – one digital platform),
- TV (one class-one channel),
- SWAYAM (online MOOCS on various topics),
- IITPAL (platform for exam preparation),
- AIR (through community radio and CBSE Shiksha Vani podcast) and
- Study materials for differently abled students developed by NIOS.
All these areas of e-learning shall be expanded and developed further in a systematic and unified manner by the MHRD in a phased manner.
- PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education – Download PDF
