PM Modi's Birthday: Evolution of education system and digital learning in India amid Covid-19 pandemic

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is celebrating his 72nd birthday today, September 17, 2022. PM Modi is serving his second term as Prime Minister and during this period, on several occasions, he has expressed his determination to revolutionise the education sector of the country. After the health sector, the education system of the country is on the priority list of India's 14th Prime Minister and to transform this sector PM has been launching a number of policies and infrastructure.

However, when the Coivd-19 pandemic hit the country in 2020, the education system was severely affected. Schools and colleges had to be closed to contain the spread of coronavirus. In pandemic times when normal life was disrupted and studies of millions of students were affected, the Centre took several initiatives to remodel the way of teaching and learning. As PM Modi turns 72 today, we look back at the steps that his government took to ensure that  students continue to learn amid the pandemic-induced lockdowns.

PM e-Vidya

In May 2020, the government launched a comprehensive initiative for digital learning, PM e-Vidya as a part of the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Programme. The initiative unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education with the following components:

• DIKSHA – One nation, One Digital Education Platform
• One class, one TV channel – Swayam Prabha
• E-content for Open School
• Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and podcast
• E-content for visually and hearing-impaired students

DIKSHA – One nation, One Digital Education Platform

DIKSHA is the ‘one nation; one digital platform’ for school education on which 35 states and UTs have their own vertical along with those of NCERT, CBSE and NIOS of the central government. Containing the e-learning content for students of grades 1 to 12 in 31 Indian languages, DIKSHA can be accessed through a web portal and mobile application.

Swayam Prabha TV Channels- One Class One TV Channel

To make the learning fun for students sitting at home in the Covid-19 lockdown, the Ministry of Education launched Swayam Prabha DTH channels to support those students who did not have access to the internet. A total of 32 channels were devoted to telecasting high-quality educational programmes of which 12 were dedicated to each class of the schooling system.

The ministry also used radio broadcasting to reach out to the children in remote areas and help them with their studies amid the Covid-19 pandemic. NCERT produced high-quality audio/radio programs with effective media treatment such as apt music, sound effects and involvement of seasoned and refined artists of good repute in the media world. The radio programmes based on curricula of class 1 to class 8 were mainly produced in Hindi, English, Sanskrit and Urdu.