HRD announces fresh guidelines for online classes, limits screen time for teachers & students

July 15: The HRD Ministry on Tuesday announced guidelines for online classes by schools and capped screen time for students and teachers across categories. As per the guidelines, online classes for pre-primary students should not be for more than 30 minutes. It further mentions that two online sessions of up to 30-45 minutes each should be conducted for classes 1 to 8 and four sessions for classes 9 to 12.

In the guideline called “Pragyata”, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), broad directions to schools were given for digital education are to follow eight steps of online learning — plan, review, arrange, guide-talk, assign, track and appreciate.

Earlier during the day, HRD Minister Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank tweeted, “Introducing ‘PRAGYATA’: Guidelines on #DigitalEducation for school heads, teachers, parents, and students containing recommended screen time for children, tips on coping with mental/physical stress during #DigitalLearning & more. Stay tuned for more details.”

Introducing 'PRAGYATA': Guidelines on #DigitalEducation for school heads, teachers, parents, and students containing recommended screen time for children, tips on coping with mental/physical stress during #DigitalLearning & more. Stay tuned for more details.#PRAGYATA pic.twitter.com/o1BkkhID7j

— Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) July 14, 2020

The guidelines have been developed from the perspective of learners, with a focus on online, blended, digital education for students who are presently at home due to the lockdown. The HRD Minister also mentioned that to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, schools will not only have to remodel and re-imagine the way teaching and learning have happened so far, but will also need to introduce a suitable method of delivering quality education through a healthy mix of schooling at home and schooling at school.

Universities and schools across the country have been shut since March 16, when the Centre announced a countrywide classroom shutdown as part of measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. A nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day.