Govt school students learning from 'Swayam Prabha'

Deepankar Sharda

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 27

In order to provide non-disrupted regular classes to the government school students, the UT Education Department is now promoting HRD ministry’s education channel ‘Swayam Prabha’.

On daily basis, all principals/heads/teachers are asked to circulate the transmission schedule of live programmes– from 11am to 1pm and 2pm to 4 pm along– with daily schedule.

NCERT topics are discussed by a panel of experts on ‘Swayam Prabha’, which is a free of cost service on Doordarshan channel. Besides this, the teachers have been asked to prepare assignments to send further to the students through the best available means of communication.

Every week, the teachers will also assess feedback of the students, who are regularly following topics on this channel. “It’s been a week now and teachers have already submitted their respective report. We will observe the response and will take further steps to ensure that every student learn something related to their topics or social living,” said Alka Meha, District Education Officer (UT Education Department).

When asked if students have access to this channel or to online mode of learning, she said that majority of people have television sets, if not mobile, at their home. “It’s better to learn something than nothing. Everyone watches television and this channel is available free of cost to all direct-to-home (DTH) services. It also facilitates those students or families, who don’t have mobile phone connections. Our teachers have been monitoring all the steps and making sure that all students learn something. We have been sending regular updates, talking to parents and having a dialogue with students to get a feedback. We are also motivating them to learn from such platforms,” added Alka.

These channels reportedly offer six hours of recorded content on four different subjects daily. On Monday, it covered topics for elementary, secondary and senior secondary classes.

Weekly report status

Sources confirmed that the first week’ report focused on how many number of students watched the channel and number of students who have no access to television.

Teachers’ approach

The UT Education Department officials also claim that they have been trying to reach out to majority of the students. “Majority of the students are getting covered in this process. We are also monitoring the few who don’t have any connection of television or mobile. Our teachers are trying to reach every student, but we also need parent’s attention and support in the cause,” said an official of the department, seeking anonymity.