Knowledge
Government school education may now come with a good quality guarantee
Basic education officials will now guarantee quality education in order to stem the increasing drop-out rates especially in urban areas where such rates are higher compared to rural areas. The ‘Quality Education Guarantee Programme’ will initially run a pilot across 15 schools in Bareilly.
In what could probably be a path-breaking initiative, basic education officials will now guarantee quality education in order to stem the increasing drop-out rates especially in urban areas where dropout rates are higher compared to rural areas.
The 'Quality Education Guarantee Programme' will initially run a pilot across 15 schools in Bareilly. While the education officials will personally intervene by giving demonstrations and presentations in these schools to encourage practical learning, the motto of the program is to attract students back to government schools. Somehow this seems like a tacit nod to the fact that government schools were not providing quality learning.
Talking about the genesis of this idea, Assistant Block Resource Coordinator (ABRC) and member of State Resource Group under Sarv Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) Anil Chaubey said, "The initiative is taken by a few ABRC's to bring a change to the routine education pattern of basic education department. For this we studied the education pattern of private schools for quite some time and drew the conclusion that all CBSE schools adopt activity-based learning, which helps keep students interested in education."
"However, in basic education, things are quite different. The number of dropout cases had increased in government schools, especially in city areas, as parents want their children to learn things properly. Research had shown that kids are more interested in activities for faster learning, which is generally missing from basic schools," Chaubey added.
This program is designed in a way that chosen ABRCs will visit shortlisted schools on a daily basis and teach children using the activity mode of instruction, making interesting and easier for them to understand.
Chaubey said, "At present we are starting off with a pilot project in the city area, where we selected 15 schools from 5 campuses, so that the five-member team of coordinators is not overburdened. The team includes DD Gangwar (Hindi), Anil Chaubey (social science), Durgesh Babu (science), Rajeev Sharma (maths) and Ashi (English). Quality education will be guaranteed to parents as per the class their children are enrolled in. Progress of students will be evaluated on a monthly basis and they will be awarded three ribbons — red, yellow and green — to be worn throughout the academic session."
Not only this, the Bareilly team is rationalising the syllabus into smaller portions so that teachers too don't feel overburdened by the target set for a semester. An important concept of 'peer learning' will also be introduced where students earning green ribbon (the better performing students) will be teamed up with red ribbon students for quicker and faster learning of the later.
Chaubey added, "The difference will be visible within a year and the dropout rate from these schools will be nominal in the next academic session."