<span style="color: #222222;">Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank today released Alternative Academic Calendar for the upper primary stage, Classes 6 to 8 in New Delhi. The alternative academic calendars at primary and upper primary stage have been developed by the NCERT under the guidance of the MHRD  to engage students meaningfully during their stay at home due to COVID-19. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Pokhriyal said, this Calendar provides guidelines to teachers on the use of various technological tools and social media tools available for imparting education in fun-filled, interesting ways. He said that very soon all the remaining classes 9 to 12 and subject areas will be covered under this calendar. AIR correspondent reports that this Calendar will empower the students, teachers and parents to find out positive ways to deal with COVID-19 using on-line teaching-learning resources.</span><br />'' <span style="color: #222222;"><br />''<br />'' The calendar contains week-wise plan consisting of interesting and challenging activities, with reference to theme and chapter taken from the textbook. Most importantly, it maps the themes with the learning outcomes. The purpose of mapping is to facilitate teachers and parents to assess the progress in the learning of children and also to go beyond textbooks. It also covers experiential learning activities such as Arts education, physical exercises and yoga. This Calendar contains class-wise and subject-wise activities in tabular forms. It includes activities related to four languages – Hindi English, Urdu and Sanskrit. This calendar also gives space to the strategies of reducing stress and anxiety among teachers, students and parents. </span><br />