NHRC, India 7.102 Human Rights Advisory for the Protection of the Rights of Children in the context of Covid-19 (2.0): In continuation of the pervious advisory dated 29 September 2020, the Commission has issued another ‘Advisory for Protection of the Rights of Children in the context of Covid-19 (2.0)’ on 02 June 2021 to the concerned Union Ministries, States/UTs for its implementation. 7.103 Core Group on Children: A meeting of the Core Group on Children was organised on 25 February 2022, on the agenda of ‘Impact of Covid-19 on Learning Outcomes of Children: Bridging the Gap’, under the chairpersonship of Smt. JyotikaKalra, Hon’ble Member, NHRC. In addition to NHRC officials and Core Group members, the meeting was attended by representatives of Ministry of Education, UNICEF India, National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and NGOs. Image: Meeting of Core Group on Children held on 25 February 2022. 7.104 Major recommendations that emanated from the meeting are as under: • The existing vacancies of 11 lakh teachers should be addressed in a time bound manner. • Community level volunteers or paid persons can be pooled to teach the lower grade students. • The new school year should be planned in a way that the initial few months of Grade Iand IIstudents are utilised for pre-school type activities instead of directly rushing them into numeracy and literacy, so that the basic foundational learning could be ensured. • The priority for grades IIIto VIIIshould be ensuring children’s proficiency in the basic reading skills, understanding ability and building confidence in performing the basic mathematical operations. • The teachers should support the children in all possible ways and conduct formative assessments in order to plan for the course of the teaching-learning process. Children’s social and mental well-being needs to be ensured, extending towards identification of the current status of each child and planning for where they need to reach. Collaborative efforts should be made by involving all the stakeholders together in discussing ideas, sharing views and ANNUAL REPORT 110 2021-22