“ONE CLASS, ONE CHANNEL”

Why in news?

Several initiatives to boost education sector were announced on 17th May including “One nation, One digital platform” and “One class, One channel”.

Highlights of announcements

• The education sector has taken this opportunity to plan several interventions, particularly in the area of adopting innovative curriculum and pedagogies, concentrating energies on the gap areas, being more inclusive and integrating technology at every stage.
• The “One nation, one digital platform” and “One class, one channel” will ensure that quality education material will reach the students present in farthest areas of the country.
• Due consideration is also being given to the Divyang children.

Initiatives to boost Education Sector

PM e-VIDYA

A comprehensive initiative called PM e-VIDYA will be launched which unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education.

This will benefit nearly 25 crore school going children across the country.

This will enable multi-mode access to education, and includes:

1. DIKSHA (One Nation-One digital platform): which will now become the nation’s digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content in school education for all the states/UTs.
2. TV (One Class-One Channel): where one dedicated channel per grade for each of the classes 1 to 12 will provide access to quality educational material.
3. SWAYAM online courses: in MOOCS format for school and higher education.
4. IITPAL: for IITJEE/NEET preparation.
5. Educational Material on Air through Community radio and CBSE Shiksha Vani podcast.
6. Study material for the differently abled: developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube.

Manodarpan

• The Manodarpan initiative is being launched to provide psychosocial support to students, teachers and families for mental health and emotional wellbeing.
• The Manodarpan Initiative will be extending support through a website, a toll-free helpline, national directory of counselors, interactive chat platform, etc.
• This initiative will benefit all school going children in the country, along with their parents, teachers and the community of stakeholders in school education.

Expanding e-Learning in Higher Education

• Government is expanding e-learning in higher education – by liberalizing open, distance and online education regulatory framework.
• Top 100 universities will start online courses.
• Online component in conventional Universities and ODL programmes will also be raised from present 20% to 40%.
• This will provide enhanced learning opportunities to nearly 7 crore students across different colleges and Universities.

New National Curriculum and Pedagogical Framework

• It has been decided to prepare a new National Curriculum and Pedagogical Framework for school education, teacher education and early childhood stage to prepare students and future teachers as per global benchmarks. The curriculum must be rooted in the Indian ethos and integrated with global skill requirements.

A National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission

• A National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission will be launched, for ensuring that every child in the country necessarily attains foundational literacy and numeracy in Grade 3.
• For this, teacher capacity building, a robust curricular framework, engaging learning material, assessment techniques, tracking of learning progress, etc., will be designed to take it forward in a systematic fashion.
• This mission will cover the learning needs of nearly 4 crore children in the age group of 3 to 11 years.