Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, May 19: Forty-four elementary schools across the state received quality school award from school and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra at Soochana Bhawan here Tuesday.
In a move to bring in quality education at primary level, the minister has announced conduct of reinforcement classes of basic literacy and numeracy skills for schoolchildren at all elementary schools in the state for three hours every Saturday. Schools having five or more teachers will conduct the reinforcement classes in the third and fourth periods for the slow learners.
Moreover, periodic assessment of learning outcomes and improvement in learning carried out under SAHAJA scheme would be integrated with Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE).
“Incentives and awards play a key role in helping schools improve. The use of self-appraisal methods to evaluate and measure the performance of the schools and students would go a long way in ushering in a healthy competition among schools,” said principal secretary of school and mass education department Usha Padhee. The objective of the scheme is not only to facilitate access to school and completion of elementary stage by children between the age group of six to 14 but also to provide education of a reasonable quality irrespective of regional, social and economic disparities.
“Improvement of quality in elementary education has been a major concern for government as well as the civil society. Despite improvement in access, retention and introduction of good curriculum, the classroom processes continue to remain a major area of concern,” said Mishra.
Samiksha, which was introduced in 2010, aims at quality monitoring of elementary schools whereas SAHAJA is there to help in improvement of slow-learners. Mahendra Mallick, director of Orissa Primary Education Programme Authority (OPEPA), SL Jena, a member of OPEPA, and AB Ota, director of Teacher Education & State Council of Education Research and Training among others attended the meeting.
