NEA emphasises on sustained education during pandemic

Dimapur, May 30 (EMN): Even as the state government has imposed a statewide lockdown in view of the present Covid-19 pandemic situation and all the educational institutions including the schools and colleges are closed down, the Nagaland Education Association (NEA) has emphasised that education is not lost and the resources not wasted even during this difficult time.

In a press release, NEA president Dr. Zavise Rume has suggested promoting a continuous dialogue with students and children to cater to the needs of academic, career, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of the students.

“We must do everything to recover the losses of school learning. We must ensure that every child is learning at home during this lockdown period. A home should now be used as a resource centre for children learning,” Rumne stated.

In this regard, he urged the parents to be oriented on how to facilitate their children in learning from home. Stating that there are many values and skills that children could learn from home rather than from school, he said the parents must be oriented on how to teach their children so as to minimise the school learning losses and to ensure continuity of learning.

“Home learning must now essentially form an integral part of the school curriculum. Every child must be encouraged to work with parents to learn good values and healthy habits like early to bed, early to rise, skills of cooking, gardening, domestic works, home economy, cleanliness, community health and hygiene and so on,” Rume added.

In his message to the teachers while taking online classes, Rume stated that they must teach and evaluate their students on how the students could work with parents. He added that students could be given to perform many creative works from home like drawing, arts, painting, writing poems apart from creative physical works.

“We must explore all possibilities to engage our students in physical activities, mental and spiritual activities. We must use our homes as a centre for promoting spiritual, mental and emotional well-being of the students. Children must be encouraged to engage themselves in spiritual activities like singing, praying, meditating and physical exercises. We must promote regular counselling at home or even tele-counselling,” Rume said.

He also suggested every parent and teacher to be oriented on the basic skills of how to handle emotional issues. While taking online classes, he stated that teachers must devote a few minutes of time to emotional and spiritual activities like meditation, signing, praying, telling short stories, ice breaking activities, provoking questions on the present situation. He added that all those activities could be promoted at home to cater to the needs of mental, spiritual and emotional well-being of the students.

He further mentioned that there is an increasing need for regular interaction with teachers so that teachers are empowered to sustain their efforts of continuous education for children to learn maximum from homes.