Panaji: Textbook lessons for students from Grade I to VIII will soon be available as videos, with the Goa State Council for Educational Research and Training (GSCERT) beginning work on converting the content of all subjects into digital learning material.GSCERT has added two studios to its infrastructure and will also use two studios belonging to the directorate of higher education for the exercise. Filming videos featuring teachers has already begun, GSCERT director Meghana Shetgaonkar said.“This year, we completed introducing new textbooks in all subjects aligned with National Education Policy (NEP) from Grade I to VIII. A lot of new content and local topics have been added to the textbooks as part of the exercise. We have two studios now, besides two more studios belonging to the directorate of higher education. All four will be utilised for turning the new textbooks into digital content,” Shetgaonkar told TOI.The directorate of higher education had completed creating videos covering its syllabus across subjects and streams in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic.The videos for school students will be uploaded to the Diksha portal, the national digital platform for school education launched by NCERT in 2017. Teachers and students will be able to access the content as a reference and use it to supplement classroom learning.While videos explaining textbook lessons are available online for CBSE and ICSE students across classes, similar content for Goa Board schools was only partially developed during the pandemic.“Now that the textbook content has been overhauled and we have our own studios, the textbook content will be created into videos in a better manner. The work has already been initiated. It will act as a supplement to classroom learning for students. We also realised that previously the content put up online was difficult to access, so those issues will be resolved this time for better access,” Shetgaonkar said.She added that central govt funds were already available for the initiative.Meanwhile, GSCERT held another round of taluka-level interactions in Sept with heads of institutions, teachers and parent-teacher associations (PTAs) of govt and aided schools to discuss NEP implementation.Shetgaonkar said such interactions had been held regularly over the past two years to address queries and concerns arising from the policy’s implementation.“Implementation of NEP is a huge task and so regular interaction to address the queries of schools and parents becomes vital, especially to deal with any misinformation. This time, we informed them about changes in the assessment patterns as part of NEP,” she said.
