Govt now proposes block teaching for students

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has come out with a new set of orders for school teachers under its ambitious Chunauti 2018 scheme, in which children are assessed

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has come out with a new set of orders for school teachers under its ambitious Chunauti 2018 scheme, in which children are assessed as per their reading and writing skills.

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The new rules are for the non-reader (Nishtha) group of classes 6 to 8.

The Nishtha group comprises non-readers who secured less than 33% in the summative assessment -I & summative assessment-II in the previous sessions.

The schools have now been asked to prepare “block teaching timetables” so that students have a better opportunity to learn.

In block teaching, the number of classes are reduced but the duration of each class is increased. The block teaching practice is at present mainly used for class 12 students when their exams are approaching.

The government now wants the try the practice on students in classes 6-8 and the Vishwas group of class 9. The Vishwas group comprises students who failed more than twice in the class and dropped out of school.

According to the new rules, in the first half of the day before recess, only three periods will be held instead of four.

The classes, instead of 35 minutes, will now be 45 minutes each.

Teachers say this will be chaotic as the rule is only meant for Nishtha groups in each of the classes.

“This is only for the Nishtha group. For the Pratibha group —readers who scored more than 33% marks in summative assessment-I & summative assessment-II exams in the last session — we are supposed to stick to holding four classes as usual,” said an English teacher of Government Boys Senior Secondary School.

The same set of teachers addresses both groups. In case a teacher has one class for the Nishtha group and the other for the Pratibha, there will be a loss of 10-15 minutes. Working out this new timetable will be a task,” the teacher said.

Teachers said they were facing a staff crunch and it would be very difficult for them to adhere to the new rules.

“When the summative assessment -1 is around the corner, the government should not be overburdening us with all this,” said another teacher.

Government officials, however, believe that the new rules are necessary to improve learning levels.

“Children will gain fluency in reading, writing and basic mathematics under the new rules,” said a senior education department official.