Sampla block of Rohtak district has been declared Saksham plus in the state. This means more than 80 percent students in government schools of Sampla are grade level competent in English.
“This is a result of the effort being put in by the Education Department, District Administration and District Education Department in Saksham Haryana initiative. Four more blocks in the districts of Charkhi Dadri, Jhajjar, and Mahendragarh have also been declared near Saksham plus (i.e. they are close to getting the Saksham plus tag),” said Chief Minister Manohar Lal.
Saksham plus denotes students’ grade level competence in English language also, in addition to Hindi and Maths. Manohar Lal, said that as many as 94 blocks were declared Saksham last week which means grade level competence of students in Hindi and Maths.
First Saksham plus assessment was held in February 2019. On the basis of nomination and preparedness, five Saksham blocks were assessed in the first Saksham plus Assessment. These are Baund Kalan (district Charkhi Dadri), Beri and Matan Hail (district Jhajjar), Ateli (district Mahendragarh) and Sampla (district Rohtak).
Elaborating what led to the creation of Saksham plus initiative, the Chief Minister said, when two blocks from Jhajjar and Mahendragarh were first declared Saksham, need was felt to lend more to the momentum built in the blocks. Thus, Saksham plus initiative was launched to build students’ grade level competence in English language, he said.
This initiative witnessed unprecedented interest in the largely ignored English language, and a plethora of proactively taken innovative block-level interventions, he said.
Manohar Lal said Saksham plus programme resulted in remarkable camaraderie in the first few ‘Saksham blocks’ of the state from Charkhi Dadri, Jhajjar, Mahendragarh and Rohtak. The discourse in these blocks centered around purely academic matters such as chapter-wise competencies and outcomes did not remain inside schools, with respective district administration engaged in driving learning level outcomes of English language with exceptional investment, he said.
Saksham plus initiative involves creation of block-level practice papers, which are shared across districts, monthly and weekly action plans along with Saksham plus Master Plan, and mapping of all English language competencies for classes 3, 5 and 7, the Chief Minister added.