GUWAHATI: Assam ministers and MLAs, besides bureaucrats including IFS, IAS and IPS officers, were busy for four days last week. They were trying to access the level of learning of government school students till class VIII.
Alarmed by the poor performances, the BJP-led government in the state roped in the services of the MLAs and bureaucrats as part of its event “Gunotsav”, which aims to gain qualitative improvement in primary education. The first phase, conducted from April 4 to 7, covered 9,11,588 students of 12,320 schools in eight districts.
State’s education minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, said the event was inspired by a Gujarat government initiative, launched 10 years ago by the then CM Narendra Modi.
“The programme will access the quality of education, community participation and infrastructure in schools. It will help identify areas that need improvement,” Sarma said.
The state’s Sarva Siksha Abhijan mission director Aruna Rajoria said reports highlighting the poor level of performance of students in government schools prompted them to take up the initiative. “Some students are doing well in language, some in math and others in other subjects.
This may be due to gaps in learning. So, we thought that by assessing the scholastic levels of children and by preparing a remedial package for them, we can fill up the gaps,” she said.
In last year’s class X exam, only one government school student was in the top 10. Factors that attributed to the scenario include the alarming trend of drop-outs and parents’ penchant to send their wards to private schools.