The Saksham Haryana, a state-wide educational program being implemented in the state for the last five years, has yielding positive results with 86 per cent students in the State now Saksham or grade level competent.
Project Director, Chief Minister’s Good Governance Associates Programme, Rakesh Gupta on Monday said that 13 more blocks have been announced for Saksham taking the total number of such blocks to 107 after eight rounds of assessment. He said that 14 districts in the State are 100 per cent Saksham after eight rounds of assessment over 18 months.
He said multiple state level initiatives have been adopted including focus on remedial education through a Learning Enhancement Program, strengthening the academic review and monitoring mechanism in the state and improving the technology systems (Management Information System and Academic Monitoring System) of the Education Department. Assessment reforms are being carried out by administering centralised exams, improving data collection and data analysis and reducing cheating, he added.
He said that the State aims to become Saksham that is to achieve grade level competencies for 80 per cent students in the state. Grade level competencies means that a student in a particular grade knows all the competencies or skills defined for that grade. He said that for a block to be Saksham, more than 80 per cent of its students need to be grade level competent and for a district to become Saksham, all its blocks need to become Saksham. Similarly, for Haryana to become Saksham, all its districts need to become Saksham.
The 14 districts which are now fully Saksham included Jhajjar, Charkhi Dadri, Kaithal, Bhiwani, Panchkula, Mahendragarh, Karnal, Sonipat, Panipat, Gurugram, Sirsa, Rewari, Hisar and Jind. The 13 new blocks which have been declared Saksham today included Agroha, Babain, Barwala, Behal, Jagadhri, Kalanaur, Mustafabad, Pinjore, Raipur Rani, Ratia, Siwan and Siwani. Similarly, the eight nearly Saksham blocks are Barara, Ballabgarh, Ferozepur Jhirka, Ladwa, Nagina, Punhana, Rohtak and Tohana. Apart from this, four non Saksham blocks are Ambala - I (City), Ambala - II (Cantt), Chhachhrauli and Hathin.
Gupta said that for blocks that have become Saksham/grade level competent in Hindi and Math, an assessment in English was conducted to vie for Saksham plus title. Five blocks were tested in February 2019 of which one turned Saksham plus. In May 2019, 26 more blocks were tested and four have become Saksham plus.
Gupta said that the state now aims to make all classes from 3 to 8, Saksham across all blocks, sustain the Saksham status of all blocks and improve quality of education in secondary classes. The next round of assessments would be conducted in August 2019. The NITI Aayog on national level is also recognising the learning from the state so that other states can also improve their learning levels.