Government defends segregation of students in Chunauti format

The state government’s Chunauti scheme aims to improve the learning levels of students from classes 6 to 9.

The AAP government has informed the Delhi High Court that students have been segregated under the Chunauti scheme solely to enable teachers to address the learning needs of different sets of children in a systematic and effective manner.

The reply comes on a plea filed by the Parents Forum for Meaningful Education, which said the children were facing discrimination due to their segregation. (HT image)

The state government’s Chunauti scheme aims to improve the learning levels of students from classes 6 to 9.

In an affidavit filed before Justice Anu Malhotra, the Delhi government said the students are assigned groups according to their foundational learning ability within their own class so that teachers can strengthen their basic reading, writing and numeric abilities.

The reply comes on a plea filed by the Parents Forum for Meaningful Education, which said the children were facing discrimination due to their segregation.

According to the plea filed through advocates PS Sharda and Subhankar Sharda, the government’s scheme segregated the children into two groups— Pratibha (superior) and Nishtha (inferior) on the basis of a “perfunctory test” conducted to evaluate their learning ability.

Countering the claims, the Delhi government said the grouping of the students on their basic learning skills help the teachers as they will not have to tackle huge variances in the same class.

It said the students also benefit because teachers will be able to focus more on those students whose learning levels need to be upgraded most, thus reducing the accumulated learning deficit.

“The single objective behind the exercise (grouping) is to provide effective support to students who cannot cross the hurdle of class 9 despite more than one attempt and ultimately, drop out. The new academic plan aims at working with the children right from class 6. Teachers will be working intensively on different groups of children exactly as per specific requirement of different groups,” the reply read.

The government said ever since the introduction of the scheme in July 2017, remarkable improvement has been seen in the children’s performance. For instance, students of class 6, the first ones to follow the scheme in July 2017, improved in their baseline (ability to read and write) till their assessment in December 2019.

In July 2017, 32% students of class 6 could not read and write. In December 2018, 65% of those students (now in class 8) attained the end line (students who can read and write).

But the petitioner said the Delhi government’s submission about the scheme being scientific cannot hold water due to insufficient or shortage of teachers in state-run schools.

The association, comprising teachers, parents, professors and academicians, had said in the plea that they keenly observed the unfolding of the plan and also interacted with parents, teachers and children.

“Such segregation of child learners in education has introduced ‘apartheid’ in the schools, vitiating the learning environment itself. It is unfortunate that the increase in the dropout rate is being ignored and the condition of education in government schools being in a shambles in reality is being misrepresented,” the plea read.