The Directorate of Education (DoE) of the Delhi Government issued a circular encompassing the approach and implementation strategy to conduct teaching learning activities in the Government and Government aided schools from nursery to Class XII for the session 2021-22 until schools re-open.

Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia reiterated that schools will remain closed until the situation of the pandemic eases but the engagement between teachers and students will resume immediately using online and semi-online approach.

Sisodia said, “With the onset of the pandemic, learning loss has been massive. This year, we not only need to reduce the learning loss but also provide deep emotional support to our children. They need to be mentally prepared for any teaching learning activities”. He added, “This year, we will have close alignment between teaching learning strategies and assessment so that the dependency on one time exam for year end result is reduced”

The action plan for session 2021-22 includes a staggered approach for students divided into three stages to ease into the teaching-learning process. “The first stage will be during the week starting from 28th June. During this time, teachers and heads of schools will contact students and parents, update contact details, make whatsapp groups and prepare a list of students with smartphones, normal phone or no phone,” he said.

In the second stage, starting from the 5th July, teachers will connect with their students to enquire about their well being, understand their situation and need for support and introduce light activities like reading, writing and numeracy in classes up to Std VIII through worksheets, he said.

In classes IX to XII, the focus would be recapitulating and understanding where the child currently is through online classes and worksheets apart from supporting emotional well being. This stage will be till the end of July.

“The last stage which begins for August onwards, the focus would be on class specific activities to bridge the learning loss. While Nursery to Class VIII will receive generic and subject-specific worksheets, for classes IX to XII the online classes by the respective subject teachers shall be conducted,” he said.

Delhi issues circular for teaching-learning to obviate dependency on one-time exam

The circular emphasizes that the focus of the online classes for classes IX to XII will be to guide the students on how to learn. Students who have difficulty in accessing digital devices will be provided short notes capturing the points of their online classes. These notes can be collected by the parents from the school on a weekly basis”. Similarly, the parents who do not have smart phones can collect the worksheets on a weekly basis from the school of their child.

Special emphasis has been given on assessment this time- “In terms of assessing students, there shall be regular monthly assessment, using innovative approaches to understand the participation level and learning of students. The nature of these assessments will be based on project, activity and assignment. The record of such assessment shall be maintained by the schools which will be uploaded on students’ module as part of internal or external assessment for the session 2021-2022”