In the wake of findings that half the class VI children in schools run by it are unable to read, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia who is holding the charge of Education department announced that the reading ability of every child will be brought to at least the basic level by November 14.
A recent assessment of the learning skills of children studying in 1,011 Delhi Government schools revealed that 74 per cent of them cannot read a paragraph from their own Hindi textbook while 46 per cent cannot read a simple story of Class 2. The Deputy Chief Minister said the Government target is to ensure every child develops self-confidence and is able to say — I can read, I can understand, I can learn, I can do.
“Every student will gain the basic ability to read by November 14, in the first step towards reversing the alarming situation. The plan was being rolled out as students’ inability to read was the single biggest challenge towards reversing the dismal State of the education sector. The reading ability of every child will be brought to at least the basic level. Our internal survey as well as reports produced by the likes of Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has over the years found that a large number of children cannot even read,” Sisodia said.
He said all the teachers, principals and the entire department will work towards making this initiative a success.
Sisodia said there will be another round of assessment between November 15-20 to check the level of competency achieved by the students and November 21 onwards the public in general including parents, journalists and activists will be allowed to make rounds of the schools. “Teachers will conduct an internal assessment on 14th November in schools, this will be followed by DIET students to be deployed by SCERT in schools to assist Heads of Schools in assessing reading levels between 15-20 November. This will complete both internal and external assessment of students,” he said.
Sisodia said teachers are faced with a dilemma since in a same class on the one hand there are children who can read and understand everything and on the other, some children are unable to read. This leads to a sense of inferiority in children who are weak in studies and further leads to a dropout, said Sisodia.
The government, as part of its Chunauti 2018 project, also plans to frame different sets of question papers for children studying in class 6, 7 and 8 based on their learning abilities. “The question papers may differ in terms of difficulty but it will be based on the same syllabus. This won’t be a problem as in any case students are not detained till class 8,” a government official said.
Under Chunauti 2018 scheme, a total of 2,01,997 students studying in government schools will be mapped and the weakest students given “special focus” to enhance learning levels from Class 6 to 9. Class 6 is the beginning level at Delhi government schools where the majority of students come from around 1,860 schools run by the civic bodies.