Delhi: IB primary programme to be reviewed due to extended school closure

However, in regular East Delhi schools, the programme was to be introduced from Nursery to Class VIII. This has been affected by the extended school closure for these grades. After the onset of the pandemic in 2020, schools opened for them on November 1 this year, only to be closed after two weeks, owing to a rise in air pollution levels. They reopened on November 29 but was shut again on December 2 after the Supreme Court rapped the Delhi government and Centre on steps taken to tackle the air pollution problem in the national capital.

“We will decide in the coming meeting whether we should roll out the programme in these schools at all this year. Content development is being done with the help of teachers but it was intended to be created for the first two-three months, implemented, reviewed and then moved on to the next few months. This has not been possible yet. Even for a brief time when schools opened for younger students, there was only a partial turnout. It will now be difficult to implement it this year with all the uncertainties, given that it is almost January,” said a senior education department official.

The schools also are working towards implementing the programme while the students are given weekly worksheets as their primary remote teaching-learning activity. The teachers in these schools are currently involved in content creation and training

“We are working on creating four sections of 40 each for classes VI, VII and VIII to implement the programme so teachers can prepare lists of those not participating in the programme. Teacher strength is going to be an issue with two programmes running side by side in school along with an increase in the number of sections,” said a teacher in one of the pilot schools.