The Centre on Wednesday released the alternative academic calendar for Classes 11 and 12, prepared by the NCERT to ensure unhindered studies of the youngsters amid the coronavirus crisis.
HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, besides announcing the academic session of senior secondary education, also shared the proposed internship plans for lakhs of students devised in partnership between HRD and Housing and Urban Affairs Ministries. The academic calendar will be issued on a weekly basis, announced Nishank. New technology and social media have been given priority while drafting the academic calendar, so as to ensure seamless imparting of education.
“As many students may not be having mobile phones and Internet connections at their homes or may not be active on the social media, teachers have been asked to instruct the students through SMSes and even phone calls. WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Google Hangout, and Gmail can be used to impart education to the students,” the Minister said.
Academic problems faced by students would also be resolved through audiobooks and radio programmes. English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu languages have at present been included in the academic calendar. The academic calendar prepared by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will be broadcast through DTH channels and videoconference with the help of SCERT, state education boards, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti.
The alternative calendar for classes till 10th was released early last month to facilitate an unhindered academic session.
Nishank also announced that along with Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep S. Puri they will jointly launch ‘The Urban Learning Internship Programme’ on Thursday.
The programme aims to provide “experiential learning” opportunities to the engineering students. “This new internship programme has been developed jointly by the All India Council for Technical Education, or AICTE, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, or MoHUA.The programme will be supported under Smart City initiative of the Government of India,” said a senior HRD Ministry official.
At the State level, TULIP will be supported by the Urban Development departments in providing a clear roadmap for the Urban Local Bodies (ULB) or smart cities to adopt TULIP in their respective organisations. The programme is designed to provide engineering students “exposure to the functioning of cities.” The developers believe that new solutions for the city ecosystem will evolve through the programme and “a pool of talent” will get “created for absorption in the market.”
The programme, which is now known as TULIP, was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2020. The one-year internship programme was introduced with an aim to improve ‘employability’ of e ngineering students.