The Union HRD Minister appealed to all the states to start the process of evaluation of answer sheets of Board exams and facilitate CBSE to evaluate answer sheets of the students in their respective States. Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' along with Minister of State for HRD, Sanjay Dhotre interacted with Education Ministers and Education Secretaries of all the States through video conferencing today.
Education Ministers of 22 States and secretaries from 14 States and Union Territories attended the conference. Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy Anita Karwal and senior officials of the Ministry participated in the meeting.
During the meeting, the Delhi government urged the central government to promote Class 10 and 12 students based on internal exams as the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will not be able to conduct nationwide exams amid the coronavirus crisis.
Delhi has also requested for an at least 30 per cent reduction in syllabus for all classes and also reduced courses in JEE, NEET and other higher education examinations, Education Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted.
While addressing the meeting Union Minister said that the current situation of COVID-19 is unfortunate, but it is time to act wisely and turn the situation into opportunity by doing new experiments to ensure safety and academic welfare of students.
Mr Pokhriyal said that our whole efforts should be that our 33 crore students do not face any difficulty and can continue their education and for this, various efforts are being made to strengthen the online education platforms.
The Minister also said that apart from this, alternative academic calendar has also been released by NCERT which states can adopt according to their local situation. "Also we have to prepare safety guidelines in case of opening of schools".
Considering the health of the students, Union Minister said that in the event of lockdown, ration is being provided under mid-day meal for the children to get adequate and nutritious food.
The Minister announced a land mark decision that Approval is being given for providing mid-day meal during summer holidays of schools, on which an additional expenditure of about 1600 crores will be made. In addition, under the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, an Ad-hoc grant of Rs 2500 crore is being issued for the first quarter.
Mr Pokhriyal informed that under SamagraShiksha, relaxing the norms, the Government of India has allowed the states to spend the balance of the previous year which is around Rs. 6200 crore and an Ad-hoc grant of Rs 4450 crore is also being issued for the first quarter.
The Minister also requested states to immediately transfer the amount released under SamagraShiksha to the State Implementation Committee so that it can be utilized properly to ensure that the next installment can be released.
During the meeting the Minister informed that on the request of Ministry of HRD regarding the availability of text books in the stores, Ministry of Home affairs has relaxed the lockdown rules to open the bookstores so that students can avail books to continue their studies.
Mr Pokhriyal said that the States where Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya are approved but could not be started due to lack of land or running on less capacity, are requested to transfer the land quickly so that the children of the State can get benefit from it.
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