The Education Minister, during meet the press session yesterday, said the ministry has prepared plans for different scenarios if the school re-opens. And one such is implementing the prioritised curriculum for Education in Emergency phase II.
The prioritised curriculum comprises of 65-70% of the actual curriculum content calculated based on the remaining instructional time for this academic year. The curriculum has a dedicated section on assessment approaches and strategies.
Unlike the adapted curriculum currently being implemented through e-learning programmes such as video lessons and self-instructional materials so far, the prioritised curriculum will be assessed and examined not only for gauging student learning but also for their promotion to the next higher classes.
However, Education Minister Jai Bir Rai says the re-opening of the schools will solely depend on the country’s situation. “If we are to continue with e-learning, then we will use the adapted curriculum as per recommended by experts. And if we re-open the schools, then we will use the prioritised curriculum where the curriculum will be reduced a little from the old curriculum,” Lyonpo said.
According to the Royal Education Council, the prioritised curriculum is a distilled curriculum which is aligned to the most carefully selected learning outcomes and objectives in each learning area for each class level. The prioritised curriculum will emphasise on fundamental key concepts with a limited scope on elaborative areas. It will engage students to explore further on the concepts through interactive learning activities and more importantly will set out a new direction for school curriculum post-COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshering rolled out the Education Ministry’s plans on how to re-open schools based on high, medium and low risk areas. “The ministry has researched looking at the situation and readied a strategy. They have divided schools based on high, middle and low risk areas. For instance, Thimphu, Phuentsholing and Gelegphu in the high risk areas and similarly the remote parts in the low-risk areas. Moreover, the ministry has divided the younger children in the high risk and middle school and high school students on the low risk based on how swiftly they will understand the instructions and adapt to the situation,” Lyonchhen said.
The re-opening of the schools will also be based on priority. The Education Ministry has categorised classes VI, X and XII in a priority group. “After further scrutinising these classes, X and XII will be further prioritised as they have board exams. After class X, they have to choose and get into different streams and it’s important they appear exams and are assessed. And for class XII, they have to get into a college and they need to be assessed too. The Education Ministry has looked into all of this,” Lyonchhen said.
Prime Minister added the government is looking into various options and conditions before finalising the decision on re-opening of schools. Lyonchhen said the stakeholders met on Thursday and discussed on the ways forward. “One such is re-opening the schools region wise. For instance, open schools in the remote areas and keep the schools in urban areas closed or open schools for classes VI, X and XII or re-open classes only from classes VII to XII and keep the other classes closed. So we have discussed all this extensively and we will finalise it very soon,” Lyonchhen added.
Schools and educational institutes across the country have remained closed beginning 18th March.
Sonam Pem
