learning Enhancement Programme (lEP) — a massive initiative of Haryana Government prepared in collaboration with Boston Consultancy Group to substantially enhance quality of education in Government schools will become operational in 3,222 primary schools from Monday onwards.
Haryana Education Minister, Ram Bilas Sharma on Sunday said that under the learning Enhancement Programme (lEP), 18,000 Government primary school teachers have been trained over the last one month as part of Haryana’s Quality Improvement Programme.
The 3,222 lEP schools are spread across the whole state and more than 6 lakh students are enrolled there. The first hour of the school day will be observed as lEP hour in these schools, where teachers will use books that have been specially prepared by State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) for the programme with support from BCG and a Delhi-based NGO.
These books focus on important competencies of lower classes so that the large learning gaps of students versus their current class can be bridged. The programme currently focuses on Hindi and Maths. The subject of English will be added in November.
TC Gupta, Principal Secretary, Haryana School Education Department said, “The goal of this programme is to ensure that all students acquire the competencies of previous classes, necessary to come up to the level of their current class. This is an urgent need.”
The State’s District and Block Elementary Education Officers, and DIET principals have been given a tight monitoring schedule to regularly visit lEP schools. They will be submitting their observations through an online utility. This will enable data-based reviews of progress and help improve the program over time. 400 mentors at block and cluster level have also been trained who will visit lEP schools every fifteen days and provide academic support to the teachers inside classrooms, said he.
The state has started with 3,222 schools. Based on its concurrent evaluation during the rest of the current academic year, the State Government intends to scale this ambitious program to all 9,000 primary schools next year.