In fifth session of Parenting in the time of Corona, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Saturday launched ‘English and Personality Development’ programme for class 10th and 12th students studying in Delhi Government schools starting from Monday.

Reviewing the session, Sisodia said meeting is a review for our team at Delhi Government with the different stakeholders involved.” “We have just introduced online classes, it is a huge transition from the regular classes, both for the teachers and the students. Some students have devices and access to the internet, while some do not. So I wanted to know if this plan is working and how are we working to get more students to join our classes,” added Sisodia.

Launching the new initiative for the students of classes 10 and 12, awaiting the completion of board exam and results, the Delhi Government introduced "Every day English and Personality Development classes" for them to enhance their spoken english and soft skills. This initiative will be open for students from Monday onwards.

It is being implemented in partnership with British Council and Macmillan Education,  Shri Binay Bhushan said, “Spoken English and personality Development classes for students of classes 10 and 12 will not only give them an opportunity to make good use of current time but also acquire much needed new skills. The classes will go on in May and June and will help in adding to the confidence of the students.”

Notably,almost 1,60,000 students of class 10 and 1,12,000 students of class 12 have appeared for their board exams are awaiting their results.

The Education Department has decided to launch spoken english and personality development classes (online) for them to make apt use of their free time at home. “We started special online classes for Maths for Class 9 students as it evokes a degree of fear among many students, in the same way, though not feared but English, particularly spoken one is a need of hour. No child should feel inferior for not being to able to communicate in it. Hindi is our language, and the mode of communication and teaching is in Hindi only, but we cannot overlook the importance and relevance of English in today's days. To progress further at national and international level, our students should have good command over the language. And that is why we are starting the classes from the coming Monday,” Sisodia said interacting Directorate of Education ( DoE) officials.

Explaining the course design, the representatives of British Council and Macmillan Education said, “The course is divided into two parts. First is Everyday English where students will be taught the functional usage of english. The second part is personality development where students will be taught about peer pressure and made to learn basic skills like facing interview. The students of class 10 and 12 will receive an SMS with a link everyday. The link will take them to the assigned webpage for that day and then the child will be able to navigate to activities of the day. The students would also be able to self assess from time to time.”

“About 2,70,000 students (class 10 and 12 combined) will be getting the link and will be able to join the course. With this launch, we now have intervention for every child, across all classes, in Delhi Government schools.” added Shailendra Sharma.

Reviewing the online math classes introduced by the Delhi Govt last week. in partnership with Khan Academy, Sharma said  “All 4,80,000 students of class 9  (std 8 students who just got promoted to std 9 and those from 2019-20 batch) have received SMS for the online math classes. 35,000 students logged in on the first day itself. So far 6 sessions have been shared ( 3 for each batch- current and previous ), and  120,000 students attended it in the first week.”

Sakshi, student of RPVV, Rohini, Sec 11 who is attending these classes regularly said, “ My Maths was slightly weak, and everyone says that it's a tough subject in class 9. But my doubts have been cleared after taking lessons from Khan Academy. I understood Online videos and then the test series are also helpful”  Dr. Sushma, Maths teacher- Delhi Govt. teacher said, “The content is well aligned with the NCERT and CBSE syllabus.”

“It is important to understand that these online classes are not to be taken as parallel teaching. Our teachers should not think that they have to start from the scratch when the schools reopen and get under pressure. it is a part of the overall teaching, it should be complementing each other,” said Sisodia added.

“We are teaching the children starting from basic concepts and covering the syllabus only, so we can take it onwards from there when the school reopens", said Dr Sushma.

At the respective school level, teachers of Delhi Government are providing last mile connectivity by informing and helping their students and guiding them to do the assignments. Deputy CM also spoke with some of them today.

Sisodia also spoke with parents of students receiving daily exercises via SMS and IVR and got their feedback on the same.  “My kids are learning something new everyday. We are participating with them in the daily activity.,” said a contended parent, Bharat, Real Estate agent from Laxmi Nagar.  “It is not just me, but even the grandfather of my kid is getting involved in making him do the daily exercise,” said Rajni, a resident of Uttam Nagar.

“I feel online education and such collaboration is becoming a viable option and a much needed one in coming days.We also want to keep getting the feedback from the parents. The glimpse of new generation school of today is before us now.” said Sisodia.