Lok Sabha Question No. 4362 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-03-27
Subject: Rural Student Community Facing Technical Crisis
Ministry: Education
Asked by: N.K. Premachandran

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

## DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO - 4362 ANSWERED ON - 27/03/2023

## Rural Student Community Facing Technical Crisis

## 4362. SHRI N.K. PREMACHANDRAN:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

- (a)  whether the Government is aware that the rural student community is facing crisis;
- (b)  if so, the action taken by the Government in this regard;
- (c)  the action taken by the Government for giving training to get technical skills to teachers and students for online teaching and learning;
- (d)  whether rural management matches/meets the requirement of the new online education system;
- (e)  if so, the action taken by the Government to make them conversant with the technology;
- (f)  whether the lack of internet facility is a deterrent for education to rural community;
- (g)  if so, the action taken by the Government in this regard;
- (h)  whether  the  rural  students  are  not  able  to  attend  their  online  classes  due  to  lack  of electronic gadgets; and
- (i)   if so, the details of action taken in this regard?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SMT. ANNPURNA DEVI)

(a) & (b) Education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution and majority of the schools come under  the  purview  of  the  respective  State  and  UT  Governments.  The  Government  of India launched Samagra Shiksha - an Integrated Scheme for school education, w.e.f 2018-19, as  an  overarching  programme  for  the  school  education  sector  extending  from  pre-school  to class XII, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of school education, across the country.  The  scheme provides support to States and UTs  for strengthening of infrastructure in schools, universal access, bringing gender equality, promoting  inclusive  education,  quality  of  education,  financial  support  for  teachers'  salary, digital initiatives, entitlements under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 including uniforms and textbooks, preschool education, vocational education, sports and physical education and strengthening of teacher education institutions.

(c) to (i) The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education launched a National Mission to improve learning outcomes at the Elementary level through an Integrated

Teacher Training Programme called NISHTHA  - National  Initiative for School Heads'  and Teachers'  Holistic  Advancement  on  21 st August,  2019.  The  aim  of  this  integrated  teacher training  programme  was  to  build  the  capacities  of  around  42  lakh  elementary  teachers  and Heads of Schools, faculty members of SCERTs and DIETs and Block Resource Coordinators and  Cluster  Resource  Coordinators.  In  view  of  the  COVID  pandemic,  'NISHTHA  -  Online was launched on 06 th   October, 2020 and the remaining training of NISHTHA at elementary level  was  conducted  online  by  the  NCERT  on  the  DIKSHA  platform  using  high  quality professionally  made  e-content.  There  are  various  NISHTHA  modules  like  NISHTHA (Elementary  Level),  NISHTHA  1.0  (Elementary  Level),  NISHTHA  2.0  (Secondary  Level), NISHTHA 3.0 (Foundational Literacy and Numeracy) for NIPUN Bharat and NISHTHA 4.0 (Early Childhood Care and Education) which are available for different levels. NISHTHA can be accessed from the link:   https://itpd.ncert.gov.in//

To facilitate the online learning by all students a comprehensive initiative called PM eVIDYA has been initiated as part of AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan on 17th May, 2020, which unifies  all  efforts  related  to  digital/online/on-air  education  to  enable  multimode  access  to education. The initiative includes:

- DIKSHA  (one  nation,  one  digital  platform) is  the  nation's  digital  infrastructure  for providing  quality  e-content  for  school  education  in  states/UTs  and  QR  coded  Energized Textbooks for all grades are available on it.
- One  earmarked  Swayam  Prabha  TV  channel  per  class  from  1  to  12  (one  class,  one channel).
- Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast- Shiksha Vani.
- Special  e-content  for  visually  and  hearing  impaired  developed  on  Digitally  Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube.

All  these  schemes/programmes  are  available  in  the  public  domain  to  all  the  students across the nation.

SWAYAM is a programme initiated by Government of India and designed to achieve the three cardinal principles of Education Policy viz., access, equity and quality. The objective of  this  effort  is  to  take  the  best  teaching  learning  resources  to  all,  including  the  most disadvantaged and to bridge the digital divide for students.

Where the digital facility (mobile device/ DTH television) is not available, Ministry of Education  has  taken  many  initiatives  like  Community  Radio  Stations  and  a  podcast  called Shiksha Vani of CBSE, Textbooks, worksheet supplied to residence of learners, Handbook on 21st Century Skills and community/mohalla classes. Innovation Funds under Samagra Shiksha have  been  used  to  set  up  mobile  school,  virtual  studios,  virtual  class  rooms  in  schools, Continuous  Learning  Plan  (CLP),  pre-loaded  tablets  etc.  in  various  states  and  UTs  in remote/rural areas where online classes are difficult.

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