Most of the elementary school teachers in Bokaro and Dhanbad districts are not highlighting pedagogical tools while teaching the students. The tool basically refers teacher-student classroom interaction wherein the latter also gets the scope of actively responding to a topic.
The lacuna was disclosed during the inspection conducted by a two member team of Sarva Shikha Abhiyan’s (SSA) Joint Review Mission from October 8 to 12. “Members including SSA consultant Subir Shukla and World Bank representative Sangeeta Dey were impressed by the effective implementation of Prayas and Buniyad programmes enhancing attendance and retention of students in government schools. However, they were unsatisfied by the traditional methodology used by teachers focusing more on lecture and less on the brainstorming of students. There is lack of utilization of pedagogical tools,” education department officials said on Sunday.
After 2011, it was for the first time a team from Government of India (GoI) visited the state for such a monitoring. The inspection commenced with a presentation of ongoing SSA programmes run in the state by Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) to the members at the state capital.
They then inspected Hindpiri’s motivational centre (meant for educating child labourers) and a school in the state capital. From October 9 to morning hours of October 10 they inspected around eight schools of Bokaro comprising a Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Block Resource Centre, Middle Schools, Cluster Resource Centre and Indradhanush school (for orphan children) at Bokaro. Thereafter, around seven schools consisting Middle Schools, Upgraded Middle Schools and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya were inspected from October 10 afternoon to October 11.
“Quality education is a major challenge which needs to be addressed,” said a state education official after attending the wrap up meeting headed by these GoI members at JEPC today.
Sources maintained the field work conducted by these Shukla and Dey will be compiled into a report and submitted to Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) soon. “The detailed centre-state progress and drawbacks over the inspection will be discussed at a meeting at MHRD on October 17. State Project Director Pooja Singhal and HRD Secretary Aradhana Patnaik are likely to represent the state,” sources confirmed.
Speaking on the opinion of state capital schools, Ranchi District Superintendent of Education Jayant Kumar Mishra said the regular attendance of students has increased from 60 to 90 percent in the past five months.
“This indicates the proper implementation of SSA programmes here. Shukla was pleased when students aged between 9 to 10 years old asked him the purpose behind his visit from New Delhi,” he added. Notably, the responsibility of Joint Review Mission is to observe the outcomes of SSA programmes in a state and check whether the directions are being followed or not.