Filling the cracks caused by Covid

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 22

Moving on from the pandemic-induced challenges that the education sector faced, schools in city have commenced classes in a phased manner. Inching towards normalcy, the school education in the country is now moving ahead with new a vision of blended education and mapping the plans for 2021 in the field of school education are a few educators from here.

“If the past year was about the sudden shift in education to digital mode, 2021 will be about building the gaps that this abrupt transformation brought about. There is a difference between digital education and blended education and this year will be all about elevating the process into a blended mode, where the students are equally engaged and creative in exploring the online as well as offline mode of learning,” says Manjot Dhillon, director, Mount Litera School. As institutions and schools across the country have commenced resumption of offline classes, Manjot says that students coming to schools after such a long hiatus have to be welcomed with empathy.

Echoing similar views is Anita Bhalla, secretary, Sarvodya Schools and Principal, Bhavan’s SL Public School. “Our first priority as educators must be to ensure that along with education, the psychological adjustment for students post-pandemic is also taken care of. The Covid-induced lockdown has had a lot of impact on mental health of children as they were not socially active and were bound to digital media. Counselling sessions by teachers would help them adjust with ease to the new normal.”

Rajiv Sharma, Principal, Springdales School, said first and foremost agenda for most schools would be to establish routine in school for in-campus education. “Integrated method of learning must be adopted in a way that it doesn’t compromise classroom teaching and its significance. Building a routine would have to be done with active participation from teachers, parents and students.”