NBSE issues guidelines for online education as schools and colleges are yet to reopen

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 2 (EMN): With the Centre and state governments announcing the closure of schools, colleges and educational institutions till September 30, the Nagaland Board of School Education (NBSE) has issued guidelines to the head of institutions for online education to ensure that students don’t lose out from the pandemic-induced lockdown.

The chairman of NBSE, Asano Sekhose, issued a notification on Wednesday, stating that many schools have adopted innovative and diverse ways to connect with their students in this time of Covid-19 pandemic; with educational institutions and teachers coming up many methods, resulting in varied modes of learning.

Terming the recently concluded mid-term of classes 8, 9 and 10 as a success, Sekhose stated that the board had issued remedial measures and concerns to all head of institutions, as closure of schools will continue and no face-to-face contact between teacher and students due to the present scenario.

The NBSE has asked the schools to identify students who didn’t do well in the recent mid-term examination and re-assess. It also directed the schools to provide interventions, and teachers to adopt alternative instructional strategies, viz. re-teaching, one-on-one tutoring using online mode or, in exceptional cases, visiting their homes by observing all standard operating procedures while assessing the students' performance in the mid-term examinations.

Teachers have been instructed to focus on students' deficit area of learning and the learning outcomes, and not on completion of the syllabus alone, adding that ‘home assignments given to the students should be planned in such a way that it acts as an extension of classroom teaching’.

The notification maintained that schools and teachers need to understand that there are parents who are able to provide academic support to their children but do not have any digital device at home; there are parents who are able to provide academic support to children and have digital devices; and there are also parents who are not able to provide any academic support to their children irrespective of whether they digital devices or not.

In these cases, schools and teachers were asked to reach out to them (the students) using online mode or visiting their homes while reminding the parents about their roles so that they can support their children's cognitive, affective and psychomotor progress in many ways.

The board stressed on having discussion with parents on the problems and difficulties faced by the students and checking the performance and growth of students' learning for resolving their deficit areas so that a follow-up action plan could be activated.

“Schools must keep a track of every individual student - their participation in online/ offline mode conduct of tests assignments etc. and each subject teacher should keep a record of the students' participation in their respective subject,” the notification read, adding that the schools must update the parents on the performance, attendance online/ offline mode of the students.

Meanwhile, it also instructed the teachers to keep themselves updated with digital platforms in order to conduct online classes and examination with ease; the head of institutions and teachers have been asked to join webinars organised by NBSE from time to time to update and equip themselves with new skills and knowledge.

Schools have been instructed to ensure that online classes are conducted for not more than four sessions of 30-45 minutes per day, and also encouraged activities under Work and Arts Education and Health and Physical Education in order to help release mental stress of the students.

Further, it informed that these remedial measures should be adopted for tracking the learning outcomes of higher secondary students too.