Centre announces 12 DTH channels for schoolchildren

nNEWDELHI: Twelve Direct to Home (DTH) channels, one for every class till 12th, will start beaming lessons right into students’ homes while the country’s top 100 higher education institutes will start new online courses as the Centre unveiled a Pradhan Mantri e-vidya plan to ensure quality education continues to be imparted in an academic year hit by the Covid-19.

Among other areas, the government is set to launch Manodarpan, a portal for emotional well-being of students, while a National Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Mission is in the pipeline. An official, who asked not to be named, said that each of the 12 new DTH channels will have six hours of content daily. However, with three repeat telecasts, they will run 24x7 hours.

Like some morning assemblies in schools, the telecasts will begin with patriotic songs and end with the national song or the national anthem, according to the plan.

During the lockdown period, provisions have also been made for telecast of live interactive sessions on these channels with subject and counselling experts from home through Skype.

To enhance the reach of these channels, the HRD ministry has tied up with private DTH operators like Tata Sky and Airtel as well. States will develop content according to their needs, which will be offered on these platforms.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman spoke about these new channels and the online courses by the top 100 institutions from May 30 as part of the government’s plan to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 and the nationwide shutdown of schools and colleges it has led to.

“All universities which have an accreditation A+, that is a score of 3.26 and above, or all universities which are in top 100 in

NIRF, can automatically offer Full Online Degree courses without prior approval of UGC during this academic year 2020-21,” said higher education secretary Amit Khare.

Among other initiatives, the HRD ministry will launch a unified education portal to meet all needs of school students, use of radio to disseminate education, a portal Manodarpan, to meet the psychological needs and ensure well being of students.

Special e-content for those with visual or hearing impairments developed on Digitally Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website and Youtube has also been brought in to ensure equity, an official added.

A New National Curriculum and Pedagogical Framework, use of radio including podcasts and increased weightage to online modules in regular courses for school as well as colleges is also envisaged.