Bihar plans catch up courses in schools as learning deficit stares

Like last year, the Bihar government has once again decided to conduct catch-up courses for classes 2-10 to overcome the learning deficit in students as schools remained closed due to Covid-19 pandemic and poor attendance, panchayat elections and other factors, officials aware of the development said.

PATNA:Like last year, the Bihar government has once again decided to conduct catch-up courses for classes 2-10 to overcome the learning deficit in students as schools remained closed due to Covid-19 pandemic and poor attendance, panchayat elections and other factors, officials aware of the development said.

This time the department of education has planned to conduct catch up courses at the start of the new academic session so that the students could get the desired benefits in reducing their learning deficit, officials added. (HT Photo)

However, this time the department of education has planned to conduct catch up courses at the start of the new academic session so that the students could get the desired benefits in reducing their learning deficit, officials added.

State project director of the Bihar Education Project Council Srikant Shastri has written to all district education officers (SEOs) and district programme officers (DPOs) to ensure that the 2022-23 academic session starts with catch up courses in all the schools and issue necessary instructions to all the headmasters of schools in this regard. “This also needs to be regularly monitored. The catch course material has earlier been provided to schools and and its soft copy is available on the portal. The teachers have also been imparted training on how to conduct catch up courses and it needs to be taken up with all seriousness,” he wrote.

The problem of learning deficit and mental health due to Covid is not confined to Bihar only, but across the country and world. According to a UNICEF study last year, the learning loss and mental health issues were found in over 75 lakh students in Bihar alone due to limited access to online facilities and confinement to homes. The study had also pointed to the problem of drop outs, especially among girls, which the state would also need to deal with through a sound strategy. The union education ministry’s statistics last year also pointed to staggering digital divide in states like Bihar and Jharkhand, contrary to far better situation in states like Kerala and Rajasthan.

With apprehensions of another Covid wave looming large, the importance of overcoming learning deficit will be all the more important. Learning outcome in the government schools has been a matter of concern even during normal times, as reflected in the annual state of education reports (ASER). The Patna high court had last year, while hearing a petition, observed that the “education system cannot be improved so long it is based on the concept of segregated system - one for elite section and other for poor residents of Bihar who have to remain content with mid-day meal, free books, uniform and bicycles with poor teaching or no teaching”, and sought details of the wards of the IAS, IPS and class-I & class-II officers in the state service studying in the government-run elementary and other schools.

In August last year, when the schools reopened after extended closure of institutions due to the pandemic, the education department came face to face with the real problems due to poor attendance even in higher secondary schools. Additional chief secretary, department of education, Sanjay Kumar, had then pointed out to his officials that while poor attendance of students was a matter of concern, more worrying was the attendance of teachers in many of the higher secondary schools despite early board exams and results. Bihar has been the first state even during pandemic years to conduct board exams and publish results long before other school boards, but the question mark over quality and consistency of education in schools remained. The late admissions in colleges and universities have also diluted the advantages of early results.