40-minute ‘remedial class’ daily in all UP govt primary schools

Now all government-run primary and upper primary schools of Uttar Pradesh will have a 40-minute ‘remedial class’ in the first period in which efforts would be made to strengthen the basic concepts and clear students’ doubts.

The move will help 12.8 million (1.28 crore) students enrolled in over 1.08 lakh primary and around 50,000 upper primary schools spread across 75 districts of the state, informed officials.

This step is in stark contrast to the earlier plan to hold separate classes for ‘weak students’ which had now been dropped for being against the concept of ‘inclusive education’ that these institutions were aimed at providing to the students, shared state education department officials.

The move to have regular ‘remedial classes’ in these schools is in line with chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s launching of ‘Mission Prerna’ in Lucknow on September 5, 2019, aimed at strengthening the basic knowledge and foundational learning skills of students enrolled in classes 1 to 8 in government-run schools across UP, they said.

Aptitude tests of students enrolled in these schools were conducted in February 2020 which showed that a large number of students lacked basic knowledge.

This finally led to the decision to host ‘remedial classes’ everyday in these schools and also kick-started a mega exercise to train around 5.50lakh assistant teachers, shikshamitras and part-time subject instructors working in these schools through an online training course between July 20 and August 14, said officials.

This training mission is being overseen by State Project Office of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan at Lucknow and Prayagraj-based State Institute of Educational Management and Training (SIEMAT), Uttar Pradesh.

SIEMAT director Sanjay Sinha said that when these trained teachers would return to the classrooms once the schools reopened, their foremost mission would be to ensure a set parameter of minimum learning achievement from the students.

“For this, the 40-minute ‘remedial classes’ have been planned as the first period when the students are fresh and eager to grasp new concepts and clear their doubts,” he explained.

Sinha said that for this already SIEMAT had trained 4,000 trainers online between July 6 and 17, 2020.

“Now these academic resource persons (ARPs) are giving training in their respective districts to select teachers to develop them as Key Resource persons (KRPs) and form state resource group (SRG) using the study material developed by SIEMAT.

Once schools reopen, we hope that these ‘remedial classes’ would help students attain a certain level of knowledge and ability as per their age and class,” he explained.