Lok Sabha Question No. 1220 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2022-07-25
Subject: Impact of COVID on Education
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Hanuman Beniwal

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1220 TO BE ANSWERED ON 25.07.2022

## Impact of COVID on Education

## 1220.   SHRI HANUMAN BENIWAL:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION  be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has assessed the adverse effect of Corona Pandemic on schools and higher education;
- (b) if so, the details of the outcomes of the said assessment; and
- (c) the  steps  taken  for  the  welfare  of  students  after  the  adverse  effect  on  schools  and  college education due to Corona Pandemic?

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

(a) to (c): The spread of COVID-19 pandemic has impacted school education. Schools in States and  Union  Territories  were  closed  as  a  precautionary  measure  to  protect  the  students  from  Novel COVID-19 (Corona) virus. This has interrupted the learning of students from pre- school to grade 12. Education  is  in  the  concurrent  list  of  the  Constitution  and  majority  of  the  schools,  Colleges  and University are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments.

During  COVID-19  Pandemic,  Ministry  of  Education  held  continuous  consultations  with  the States  and  UTs  at  various  levels  to  assess  the  various  aspects  of  the  COVID-19  pandemic.National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has conducted a survey in the month of July, 2020 with the help of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) and Central  Board  of  Secondary  Education  (CBSE)  to  understand  the  scenario  of  Online  Learning  of school  students  in  COVID-19  pandemic  situation.  The  National  Achievement  Survey  (NAS)  was conducted on 12.11.2021 in 717 districts of the country to assess learning levels of sampled children of grades 3, 5, 8 and 10. The aim and objective of NAS is to evaluate children's progress and learning competencies as an indicator of the health of the education system, so as to take appropriate steps for remedial actions at different levels. National, State/UT and District Reports for NAS 2021 have been released on 25.05.2022 and are available at http://nas.gov.in.

Samagra Shiksha has been aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in order to ensure inclusive and equitable, quality and holistic school education. The major interventions, across all  levels  of  school  education,  proposed  under  the  scheme  are:  (i)  Universal  Access  including Infrastructure Development and Retention; (ii) Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, (iii) Gender and Equity; (iv) Inclusive Education; (v) Quality and Innovation; (vi) Financial support for Teacher Salary; (vii)  Digital  initiatives;  (viii)  RTE  Entitlements  including  uniforms,  textbooks  etc.;  (ix)  Support  for ECCE; (x) Vocational Education; (xi) Sports and Physical Education; (xii) Strengthening of Teacher Education  and  Training;  (xiii)  Monitoring;  (xiv)  Programme  Management;  and  (xv)  National Component. Samagra Shiksha also has a clear focus on bridging and eliminating gender differences in enrolment, retention and quality of learning.

A  National  Mission  on  Foundational  Literacy  and  Numeracy  called  'National  Initiative  for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat)' has been launched by the

Ministry of Education (MoE) on 5 th July  2021under the aegis  of  the  centrally  sponsored  scheme  of Samagra  Shiksha  which  is  an  integrated  scheme  of  school  education  covering  from  Pre-School  to Senior  Secondary  level.  The  National  Mission  lays  down  priorities  and  actionable  agendas  for States/UTs to achieve the goal of proficiency in foundational literacy and numeracy for every child by grade 3.

The Department of School Education and Literacy vide letter dated 4th May, 2021 has shared a comprehensive Covid Action plan with States/UTs and other stakeholders for mitigating the loss of learning. This  Department  has  also  developed  an  online  module  for  compiling  the  data  of  Out  of School Children (OOSC) identified by each State/UT and their mapping with Special Training Centres (STC)  on  the  PRABANDH  Portal  (http://samagrashiksha.in).   The  portal  requires  the  concerned State/UT  to  validate  the  child  wise  information  of  the  identified  OOSC  and  STC  uploaded  by  the concerned  Block  Resource  Centre  of  the  State  for  monitoring  the  progress  of  mainstreaming  of OOSC. Also, Bridge Course Modules have been developed for bridging the learning gaps of Out of School Children studying in Special Training Centers (STC) under the provision of RTE Act, 2009.

A  comprehensive  initiative  called  PM  eVIDYA  has  been  initiated  which  unifies  all  efforts related  to  digital/online/on-air  education  to  enable  multi-mode  access  to  education.  The  initiative includes, where work is in progress:

- DIKSHA the nation's digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content for school education in  states/UTs:    and  QR  coded  Energized  Textbooks  for  all  grades  (one  nation,  one  digital platform)
- 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

In view of the COVID-19 challenges and in order to provide continuous professional development opportunities to the teachers at the elementary level, this Department launched the NISHTHA online training programme using DIKSHA platform in October 2020. NISHTHA online for elementary level covered  18  modules  in  11  languages,  including  use  of  ICT  in  teaching-learning.  Around  24  lakh teachers completed NISHTHA online training at elementary level by June, 2021. Further, NISHTHA online  training  has  also  been  initiated  for  secondary  teachers  and  teachers  teaching  at  foundational level.

Various  digital  initiatives  are  being  undertaken  by  Ministry  of  Education  viz.  SWAYAM, SWAYAM Prabha,  National  Digital  Library  (NDL),  Virtual  Lab,  e-Yantra,  FOSSEE  (Free  OpenSource Software for Education)etc to ensure quality education to the students.  Quality Online courses are provided through SWAYAM which is an indigenously developed MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) platform.

University  Grants  Commission  (UGC)  has  issued  a  letter  to  Higher  Educational  Institutions (HEIs)  on  21.03.2020  that  faculty  members/researcher  should  utilize  pandemic  period  for  various academic activities such as online teaching, online evaluation, develop instructional material, prepare question bank etc. A letter issued on 11.04.2020 appealing HEIs to share details of the Bharat padhe online campaign and to provide valuable inputs on twitter or email. Further, UGC issued a letter dated 17.09.2020 requesting the HEIs to popularize and encourage students and faculty to take advantage of online programmes, courses and learning materials.

To  avoid  hardship  to  the  students/research  scholars  during  lockdown  due  to  two  waves  of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, the monthly payments were paid even for those students/scholars whose monthly confirmation of data could not be updated by their institutions on the designated scholarship portal.  UGC  issued  Public  Notice  regarding  extension  of  date  for  submission  of  thesis  for  terminal M.Phil/Ph.D. students vide letters dated 03.12.2020, 16.03.2021, 02.09.2021 and 01.12.2021. These letters are available on www.ugc.ac. in.