Alternative Academic Calendar
Alternative Academic Calendars(AAC) have been created by the NCERT under the supervision of the Ministry of Human Resource Development(MHRD) in order to engage kids meaningfully during their stay at home because to COVID-19 through academic activities at home with the help of their parents and teachers.
Scope of this Calendar
The Calendar gives teachers instructions on how to use the numerous technical and social media resources available for imparting education in an entertaining and engaging ways that students, parents, and teachers may use at home. It has, however, taken into account the diverse levels of access to such tools such as mobile phones, radio, television, SMS, and numerous social media platforms. It is also known that many people do not have access to the internet on their mobile phones or are unable to use various social media tools such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. In this situation, Teachers can use the calendar to provide further guidance to parents and children via SMS or voice call. Parents are expected to assist primary children by putting this calendar into practice.
Main Features of this Calendar
- The calendar includes a week-by-week schedule of fun and challenging activities based on a topic or section from the syllabus or textbook.
- The most crucial aspect is that it connects the themes to the learning outcomes.
- The goal of mapping themes to learning outcomes is to make it easier for educators and parents to assess their students’ progress and also to go beyond textbooks.
- The calendar’s activities mainly targets on learning outcomes and can thus can be accomplished by using any resource, that includes the textbooks that kids are using in their state or UT.
- It also includes activities such as Arts Education, Physical Exercises, Yoga, and pre-vocational skills, among many others. The Calendar contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms.
- This calendar has activities linked to four languages as topic areas: Hindi, English, Urdu, and Sanskrit.
- This calendar also contains recommendations for teachers, students, and parents on how to reduce stress and anxiety. The calendar provides a link to Chapter-specific e-content present on the GoI’s e-pathshala, NROER, and DIKSHA portals.
- All of the suggested tasks are illustrative rather than prescriptive, and the following the order of these activities is not necessary. Teachers and parents may choose to recontextualize the activities and conduct those that the student expresses an interest in, regardless of the order.
For Various Stages, various Alternative Academic calendars have been designed
| Stage | Academic Calendar |
|---|
| Primary Stage | Eight Week Alternative Academic Calendar for the Primary Stage (English) |
| Primary Stage | Alternative Academic Calendar for primary stage (English) |
| Upper Primary Stage | Eight Week Alternative Academic Calendar for the Upper Primary Stage (English) |
| Upper Primary Stage | Alternative Academic Calendar for upper primary stage (English) |
| Secondary Stage | Alternative Academic Calendar for Secondary stage (English) |
| Higher Secondary Stage | Alternative Academic Calendar for higher secondary stage (Classes IX and X) (English) |
All the Alternative Academic Calendars are available on the official website of NCERT. The direct link to see these calendars are https://ncert.nic.in/alternative-academic-calendar.php.
