Colleges in Himachal Pradesh
Since March, educational institutions across the country have been shut down, leading to concerns among students and parents. Although several states in India launched home learning initiatives, two standout home learning programs include Har Ghar Pathshala of Himachal Pradesh and Ghar Se Padhao of Haryana.
Both the campaigns mentioned above took advantage of WhatsApp to a great extent. It was beneficial to establish a powerful bond between students and teachers. This also saw a massive participation in online assessments. Their key to success can be summarized into five major elements which are discussed below
Excellent content
The states of Himachal Pradesh and Haryana have developed teams to prepare learning materials including videos and worksheets for the students regularly. This specific content features top-quality open-source materials along with in-house creations. Some of the colleges in Himachal Pradesh created a group of leading staff, whereas the council of Haryana focused on partnering with teachers as well as mentors for developing content. It lays special emphasis on daily access to better-quality items.
Robust engagement plans
It is indeed a huge challenge to engage teachers, parents, and students at home. However, each state has improved its tactics over some time. For the colleges in Himachal Pradesh, an outreach campaign leveraged social media, radio ads, infographics, and print media spearheaded by the CM and education minister. They had also launched the HGP program and organized e-PTMs for engaging parents. It also witnessed a huge participation of teachers interacting with the majority of the parents.
Even the state of Haryana also incorporated similar campaigns, such as the ‘Shishka Mitr’ program, where nearly 1.3 million volunteers assisted students in accessing smartphones and study schedules. The e-mentoring initiative offered assistance to more than one thousand two hundred mentors in guiding teachers to improve student engagement.
Frequent assessments
Haryana SCERT is organizing online quizzes through WhatsApp for grades 5-12 every week. It is estimated that around 6.5+ lakh students are actively participating in this activity. The state of Himachal Pradesh is taking advantage of the Chatbot for weekly assessments through WhatsApp. This bot would share explanatory videos for individuals who do not perform well.
Conclusion
The outbreak of the pandemic has posed a significant challenge to schools for some time. Other states must consider adopting the tactics implemented by Haryana and Himachal Pradesh to improve home learning.