HRD-Minister releases PRAGYATA Guidelines

HRD-Minister releases PRAGYATA Guidelines

New Delhi: Recommending a cap on duration and number of online sessions in a day for students from Class I to XII, the Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Tuesday released PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education through video conferencing.

The Minister informed that PRAGYATA guidelines have been 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 alternative academic calendar of NCERT, for both, learners having access to digital devices and learners having limited or no access.

HRD-Minister releases PRAGYATA Guidelines

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.

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.

HRD-Minister releases PRAGYATA Guidelines

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.

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.