The J&K School Education Department (SED) has roped in NGOs to supplement the government’s efforts to overcome the learning gaps among the school-going children as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In this regard, the project director Samagra Shiksha, Deep Raj, in an official communication to all the Chief Education Officers (CEOs) has said the long closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the learning levels of students especially at elementary level.
“The enhancement in learning gaps needs to be prioritised in order to ensure smooth transaction of weaker students to their next grade,” the document reads.
The projector director Samagra said the Pratham Education Foundation- an NGO, which has been successfully working on the improvement of learning of students in the UT shall be conducting different activities in the schools.
“The activities will include handholding of students, training of teachers, assessment and other issues which will be done in collaboration with the department of school education for students of 4th to 6th class from the month of June 2022,” the document reads.
In this regard, the CEOs have been asked to facilitate the organization (Pratham) in the conduct of the activities.
“The progress report of all the activities to be carried out in collaboration with the organization should be shared with this directorate by the end of every month,” the document reads.
Talking to Greater Kashmir, Deep Raj said the NGOs have been roped on the basis of a MoU signed with the nonprofit organisations, to supplement the efforts of the department to fill the learning gaps among the students.
“The NGO will focus on training our teachers through various orientation programmes which will supplement the teachers to work on filling learning gaps among our school children. The arrangement has been done to supplement the efforts of our government teachers,” he said.
A functionary from Pratham Education Foundation while briefing about the initiative told Greater Kashmir said that various surveys and studies on schools during the pandemic revealed that students developed learning gaps due to closure of schools.
“So we have decided to conduct one month each workshop on language and mathematics for students of class 4th to 6th. The workshops will be held in a play-way method,” he said.
He said prior training will be given to the teachers and they will be briefed about the execution of the workshop.
“A baseline survey will be done after completing a one month programme which will be followed with the end line survey after completion of the second month to compare the results,” he said. The NGO may continue with the further workshops from August if the workshops conducted in June and July months will prove effective for students.
“To begin with we will start a two month programme on a pilot basis and we will start workshops for full academic sessions from August,” he said.