New Academic Calendar and Role of Teacher
By: Gh Hassan Bhat
In accordance with the NEP 2020, the Jammu and Kashmir Govt. approved uniform academic calendar in all schools in the UT of JK including all private institutions and have decided to conduct all examinations in March and April henceforth. Based on the geography and other climatic conditions, the schools of Jammu and Kashmir had summer and winter zones and had different academic calendars.
It is worth to mention that Jammu and Kashmir had the March session till 1974-75 which was changed in 1975. But now situation has changed, it has its own pros and cons at large scale. Notably admission process shall now commence from the month of March every year. The uniformity in the calendar is enviable and necessary also to have a positive impact on the teaching learning process. Consequently, as the calendar changes, the role and responsibility of all teaching community has increased manifold.
As we know, almost after three years of covid-19, educational institutions have been again functional; the pandemic had long lasting and devastating effects on educational setup all over the globe. But teachers from time to time have managed to recompense the academic loss by taking strenuous efforts to engage students in academic process. Be it online classes, community classes, home based education, assignment distribution, digital literacy etc. everywhere they played their role very assiduously. Meanwhile a notable exercise was done to increase the enrolment in govt schools by means of conducting large scale enrolment campaigns during last three years.
Now as the calendar changes, the role and responsibility of all teaching community has increased manifold. All schools are almost now closed and teachers can contribute in various capacities. The NEP 2020 has already envisaged teacher’s role in the education system. The importance of developing 21st century abilities and skills among students must be prioritized by all educators. Creativity, innovation and vision development among students to take up different opportunities and challenges are best attributes which we must inculcate in children. Keeping the ongoing winter vacations in mind, there lies a great onus on all of us to make sure that these vacations are being utilized by the students in a proper manner. To make them fully engage we must take some immediate efforts. Multifaceted approach is needed to get the best possible outcomes.
Winter Online Classes: As tuition teaching has been banned, teachers should engage themselves in winter online class system by holding online zoom classes, doubt clearing sessions to guide and keep track of their students and bring maximum results in forthcoming examinations.
Winter Assignments: To mitigate the academic losses different winter assignments must be prepared by the teachers to supplement this process.
SBA Interventions: as envisaged in NEP 20220, the School based assignment (SBA) have replaced continuous comprehensive evaluation (CCE) pattern of assessment with prime objective to obliterate the threat of exams and exam oriented teaching learning process. Teachers have to equip themselves about this assessment pattern to benefit the students in large scale.
Holding PTMs: To decipher the learning needs of students and building cooperation among teachers and parents, need of hour is to conduct different Parent teacher meetings to make the parents, PRIs and general public council about the learning standards of their wards and make them aware about the different facilities being provided by the govt run schools.
OOSC AND CWSN student Engagement: The Out of School Children and Children with special needs are a lot who need special care and attention by all of us. To bring them back into school curriculum is really a serious challenge we must work over.
Special Sessions on foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) should be given much importance to bring basic changes among little buds.
Promotion of different Indian languages also needs our due care to make our young generation aware about the cultural diversity of our country. There are umpteen other steps needed to be taken up in line of NEP 2020 and new academic calendar.
To conclude- teachers have to play a crucial role and take up huge responsibilities in near future. In NEP 2020 teacher is central body and aims to set the National Professional Standards for teacher career management. There is a need to be a passionate teacher, a resource, a supporter and a mentor for your students and community in whatsoever circumstances. But besides all this there lies great responsibility on our higher rung authorities to boost and encourage this community to galvanize the education sector in India and bear fruits we all seeing from the NEP 2020.
The writer is Govt Teacher, Resource person- Zone Tangmarg Baramulla and can be emailed at [email protected]
