Home-Based Online Projects Launched To Help School Students Tide Over Lockdown Crisis In Odisha

Berhampur: At a time when children tend to become restless, worried and depressed as the schools remain closed due to COVID induced lockdown, the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) and Piramal Foundation for Education Leadership (PFEL) have come with a unique idea to keep them stay positive and happy.

SCERT and Piramal Foundation, which aims to bring big social change through Gandhi Fellowship, launched curriculum and context based home-based mini projects during an online training programme to engage the students confined to their homes in productive activities.

Santoshi Bhopa, Kabita Mishra and Gandhi fellows hosted the training session which was participated by 165 master trainers and 350 CRCC of Khurda and Ganjam districts on August 3. Dr Santosh Kumar Parida, Rakesh Kumar Behera and Anindita Priyadarshini participated as resource persons.

“We plan to recognise the creative works of the students and bring them out from boredom till the schools reopen,” said Uma Panda and Sudhansu Dalai, two master trainers of Ganjam who participated in the training.

The project aims at encouraging the students to take up any curriculum-based experiment at home under the guidance of the subject teacher of his school online. The student is allowed to involve his parents or elderly family members in the experiment. The teacher can guide the student online or visit his/her house if the situation arises.

During the next phase, each master trainer would train 90 teachers under one Professional Learning Community (PLC) through ‘Dikha Portal’ and thus all the students would be covered under the home-based mini projects by their school teachers. The curriculum of the project would cover all the subjects.