The skills of the students in the schools of union territory of Chandigarh will be tested in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to be conducted in 2021.

“From India, Chandigarh has been selected to participate in PISA. All schools i.e. government, aided, private unaided and central govt. schools will participate in the PISA. PISA tests the skills and knowledge of the students aged between 15 and 16 years in three areas i.e. Mathematical, Scientific and Reading literacy,” said BL Sharma, Education Secretary, Chandigarh Administration.

The PISA is a triennial international survey which aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills of students.

The students of various schools in Chandigarh will now be trained to answer questions on logical reasoning which is the pattern of the PISA assessment.

“In order to make students PISA ready, material in the form of question banks and modules is being prepared at UT level with the inputs from CBSE,” the Education Secretary said.

Sharma said that the Chandigarh Administration has on Tuesday launched a project aimed at making fundamentals of Mathematics clear to the students of upper primary classes in collaboration with Khan Academy at GMSSS-8 here.

To begin with the project will be on pilot basis in Chandigarh in 9 government schools i.e. GMSSS-8, GMSSS-21, GMSSS-22, GMSSS-23, GMSSS-35, GMSSS-46, GHS-50, GHS-53 and GHS-54. Teachers and Students of these schools will use the resources which are available to the users of the website of Khan Academy for free, he said.

The Education Secretary said that around 3000 students studying in upper primary classes will be benefited from this project. A one-day hands on training programme has already been conducted on August 1 for the Principals and 41 Mathematics teachers of these 9 schools by experts from Khan Academy for smooth implementation of the project, he said.

For the government schools of Chandigarh, ‘in class model’ is being implemented in these 9 government schools. In this model, students are given entire practice or assignments during the school hours.

One period every week will be allocated in the school time table during which hands on practice session will be undertaken by the students in the computer lab.  Teachers will commence the use of material during the current topic of the syllabus which they are already teaching, the Education Secretary added.