Union Minister for HRD Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has launched a week long ‘Bharat Padhe Online’ campaign for Crowd sourcing of ideas for improving online education ecosystem of India. Speaking on the occasion Union Minister said that this campaign aims to invite all the best brains in India to share suggestions/solutions directly with HRD Ministry to overcome constraints of online education while promoting the available digital education platforms.
Pokhriyal said that students and teachers are our main target audience in it and he hoped that they will participate in this campaign wholeheartedly to improve the existing online education methods. He said that Students who are currently studying in schools or higher educational institutions are the ones engaging with the existing digital platforms offering various courses etc. on a daily basis. They can share what is lacking in the existing online platforms and how we can make them more engaging.
Pokhriyal said that Ideas can be shared on bharatpadheonline.mhrd@gmail.comand on twitter by using # BharatPadheOnline up to 16th April 2020. While using Twitter one must tag @HRDMinistry and @DrRPNishank so that ideas can be notified to us, he added. The Minister said that he would like to go through the suggestions personally.Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank(@DrRPNishank) April 10, 2020
He further said that the educators across the country can also come forward to contribute with their expertise and experience in the field of education. A conversation can be initiated with them, asking them what do they think an ideal online education ecosystem should look like? Or what are the limitations of the current online education scenario of India? What challenges they face in traditional classrooms that can be addressed through Online education.
Its important to note, the timing of the announcement coincides with majority of the student and teacher community is interacting online when the nation is under extended lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak. A few states have already declared a complete closure of educational institutions until further instructions. Many educational technology providers have opened up their courses for free to the students.