Tags:
Journalism of Courage
WITH AN aim to review its own curriculum and fill the “gap areas” in learning, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has decided to initiate a nationwide assessment of Class III, V and VIII syllabus starting June this year. “Until now, every state had had its own mechanism to ratify the quality of education imparted, which could not be compared. With this new assessment, we hope to bring all states on one platform to ensure quality improvement,” said Anil Swarup, secretary in Department of School Education and Literacy at MHRD, during a press briefing here Sunday.
Swarup was in the city as a part of a two-day western region workshop on “Innovation and best practices in education.” According to the learning outcomes scheme, assessment tests would be conducted in September, results of which would be presented to the ministry by December. And in the last quarter of the academic year, the ministry would identify and rectify the possible areas of improvements, suiting the requirements of each of the states. The maiden process would commence in September 2017, said Swarup.
On the ongoing fate of various assessment and baseline tests, he said, “That is in the purview of each of the state governments. However, they are free to merge the same with the learning outcome.” Initially, the ministry will introduce assessment only for Class III, V and VIII and have a sample size of about three per cent of the student population.
The workshop, second in the five-part series, is the latest move by the ministry to understand and upgrade the curriculum after reviewing performance.
“Several innovative ways are being implemented in every state. But, we have realised that all activities must be scaled-up to obtain optimum results,” he added.
Maharashtra, he pointed out, was one of the highest spending states on every child, which amounts to Rs 17,0000 annually, but the outcome has not been appreciable. “The objective is to use and share ideas from each of these states and implement them, so that bar of quality education is ultimately raised,” said Nand Kumar, principal secretary, State School Education and Sports.
