Bengaluru: With the new academic year (2021-22) scheduled to start from July 1, the Department of Public Instruction has issued guidelines for teaching of students from Fifth to Tenth standards, in the wake of COVID crisis.

Accordingly, there will be online and offline classes instead of physical classes. The lessons will be taught in video mode through Doordarshan channel, while FM Radio will broadcast lessons through audio.

The Department has uploaded more than 22,000 contents of lessons for 1st to 10th std. students on the Union Government’s Deeksha App. Value addition textbooks too are available on this App. The students can download all this and study lessons. This apart, the teachers can make a short video of lessons taught and share it with parents of students. Teachers are required to form class-wise WhatsApp group of parents and keep in touch with them to provide necessary guidelines that help children in learning. The Dept. will soon come up with the timetable for Doordarshan and Radio classes, a release issued by the Department said.

The release further said that teachers should educate the students and parents on how to access classes through mobile phone, internet, radio, Doordarshan and other platforms. 

In case of students who do not have such facilities, the teachers are required to identify residents in the neighbourhood of such children and convince them on letting out their facilities for the cause of education. This apart, the students can visit their schools twice a week, during which the children will be given practice sheets and advised on the usage of such sheets. These sheets will be evaluated for the academic performance of children. Every teacher is required to take up the responsibility of teaching at least 10-15 children.

As it is necessary to briefly revise the lessons of the previous year in order to keep up the momentum of learning, a 30-day ‘Sethu Bandha’ initiative has been included in the current academic year. The children will undergo online and offline exams during the last days of this initiative, for which the students have to prepare just like last year. The teachers are asked to conduct parents-teacher meeting once in a week to discuss student learning abilities. The teachers are also required to assess the student in every subject by an evaluation, the results of which must be mandatorily uploaded in the student assessment tracking system software, according to the release.