In an attempt to keep students engaged at home, the Maharashtra School Education Department has appealed to the central government to allow broadcasting 12 hours of daily educational content through any two channels under the DD National Channel Family on television (TV) and two hours of daily content on the All India Radio (AIR). Varsha Gaikwad, state school education minister, wrote a letter to Prakash Javadekar, minister of the Information and Broadcasting (I&B), on May 27, requesting to allow broadcasting in order make up for the loss of instructional time, as schools are shut because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The letter stated, due to the lockdown, students are at huge risks of losing significant instructional time. Gaikwad tweeted on Friday, "We have requested the central government to give 12 hours air on national TV and 2 hours radio slot so that we can conduct educational programs for children, which can reach tribal and rural Maharashtra kids where e-learning and Internet access is a problem."
The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), an autonomous body of the government for academic aspects, will curate grade-wise digital learning and interactive content, which will be broadcasted. An officer of the state school education department, said, "We have already accumulated more than 1,000 hours of content. We are waiting for an approval from the central government, following which we can decide time slots for broadcasting."
The state government, along with SCERT, is figuring out different ways to support student learning in difficult times. DIKSHA, the Digital Infrastructure platform for Knowledge Sharing, is the national teacher platform being promoted in the state via a mobile app.
