NIOS extends Education to Rural India through Live Programmes on Swayam Prabha TV

In pursuance of the directives of the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India, and the need for necessary social distancing resulting in school closures, NIOS is harnessing the available learning platforms during the COVID-19 period so as to utilize the lockdown period for the benefit of the learners.

NIOS started with this innovative idea of imparting live programmes every day on SWAYAM Prabha – Panini (Secondary) and Sharda (Senior Secondary) from 7th April 2020. The discussion is being broadcast on Channel no. 27 (Panini) & 28 (Sharda) of SWAYAM Prabha. The discussion comprises of six hours of live interaction from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm with the secondary and senior secondary learners of NIOS and CBSE. Recorded videos of the different topics are telecast from 7:00 am to 10:30 pm and from 4:30 pm to 1:00 am. The programmes are available free of cost with different service providers such as Airtel (437,438), Videocon (475,476), Tata Sky (756), Dish tv (946,947), Sun Direct (791,792) DD Dish (124,125) & Jio App.

Teachers from Kendriya Vidyalaya, Navodaya Vidyalaya and Army Public Schools have joined us in this endeavor and have been working continuously since it initiated. The teachers are using a variety of tools ranging from traditional to high-tech options for explaining/demonstrating the contents to the learners. The NIOS connects the teachers through Skype and the DTH channels are uplinked from BISAG, Gandhinagar.

Through this initiative, we are successfully reaching out to the learners of the country especially in far flung areas who do not have access to internet during these difficult times. The students can log in to the website sdmis.nios.ac.in or call NIOS toll free telephone and ask questions to the teachers. The queries are being responded to by the experts thereby making these programmes more interesting and interactive. The impact of the programme is evident from the queries being raised during live sessions.

The detailed schedule of subjects, topic, name of subject expert and the designated time slot are prepared and shared with the learners and extensively publicised on the social media.

The above table clearly depicts increase in subscription and viewership for live programmes from March to June 2020. The subscription and viewership of the YouTube NIOS DTH Channel has increased significantly.

Till date, more than 400 live sessions have been conducted by 100 teachers in different subjects at secondary and senior secondary levels – addressing the learning requirement of formal School Education system other than NIOS courses. The core subjects are covered in the live interactive sessions to ensure continued learning support to maximum number of learners across the country.

During the month of June, sessions at secondary level comprised of Yoga, Music, Dance, Art & Craft and Counseling keeping in view the school break time in summers in the school academic year. In July the sessions focused on revision of the core subjects. In wake of the current situation, NIOS exams stand cancelled and we will be staring with live sessions afresh in all subjects offered at NIOS as per the syllabus.

The feedback shared by learners from different parts of the country indicates that Swayam

Prabha platform is an effective learning platform and helping them in better understanding of the concepts during these times of corona pandemic. It is one of the alternative education platform available for secondary and senior secondary levels at this crucial time and also in times to come. This surely gives us another reason to continue with same vigor and tempo.