UP education department to focus on learning level outcomes

CAMPAIGN Teachers to concentrate on improving language skills, oral fluency, comprehension and numerical skills of primary and upper primary students. Assessment dashboard to monitor performances

The Uttar Pradesh education department has launched a campaign to enhance grade level competence of primary and upper primary students through foundation learning.

The Uttar Pradesh education department has launched a campaign to enhance grade level competence of primary and upper primary students. (HT File)

Aadharshila (foundation), dhyan-aakarshan (attracting attention for remedial learning) and shikshak sangrah (teacher’s compendium) are the three key areas on which five lakh government school teachers will now focus in a big way.

“Basically teachers of government primary and upper primary schools will concentrate on improving language skills, oral fluency, comprehension and numerical skills, for example whether or not the child is able to do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In the past, studies have indicated that Class 5 students were unable to do simple maths or read simple sentences of Class 2,” said director general school education, Vijay Kiran Anand.

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath has made it a central objective of the education department and has set a two-year road map to achieve grade level competence in the coming National Achievement Survey of the Government of India. Presently, more than five lakh government school teachers are being trained in the world’s largest training programme.

A state resource group has been formed and is being trained by the SCERT while academic resource persons are being selected by the district administration through a stringent selection process to ensure better outcome of this first ever foundation course launched by the education department.

For effective monitoring of the learning outcome, each of the academic resource persons (ARPs) will visit 30 schools per month. Every detail of the findings is to be uploaded in the newly launched Prerna app. The first assessment of 60 lakh students was done last month and in February, another test will be held to measure how the students have fared after the launch of this new methodology.

Another official of the basic education department said a robust dashboard had been set up to monitor student and school wise performances. To further help teachers, the department has uploaded over 3,000 video tutorials on Diksha app to achieve the desired learning outcome and improve competence of 1.58 crore students enrolled in government schools, the official said.

The basic education department has stitched a partnership with organisations like Azim Premji Foundation, Khan Academy and Pratham that are working in the education sector. These organisations have also provided good quality content available at the click of a button. Soon each school will be provided with tablets to use applications and digital learning material.

“To monitor all of this, the state government is hiring an agency that will carry out an internal assessment every quarter. In every block, 25 schools will be randomly selected to measure the learning outcome. The chief minister is himself monitoring the effort put in by the district magistrates, chief development officers and basic shiksha adhikaris via the dashboard set up in his office,” said director general school education.