Chandigarh, January 6 –
Acknowledging the need to assess and enhance minimum learning level of students in government schools, the Haryana Education Department has decided to conduct monitoring of about 250 schools in the State every fortnight.
Additional Chief Secretary, School Education, P.K. Das, said that monitoring of about 200 schools was done in December, 2016, and direct interactions were held with about 25,000 students. “ On the basis of this monitoring, it could be said that the situation in terms of minimum learning level is not disappointing and the mindset that students of government schools do not know anything is also wrong,” he added.
He said that in terms of district-wise overall performance, Mahendragarh, Gurugram and Rewari were among the top three whereas Panchkula, Mewat and Palwal were among the bottom three, with Panchkula performing worse than Mewat.
The performance of districts Gurugram, Hisar, Kurukshetra, Mahendragarh, Panipat and Rewari has been praiseworthy. Similarly, the state average in Class IX was 3.2 per cent, with 10 districts giving above average performance.
He said that in Class X plus one (Science), all districts except Panchkula had given outstanding performance, with average of 90 per cent. Besides, students in districts Bhiwani, Hisar, Kaithal, Mahendragarh, Panipat, Rewari and Sirsa answered all questions correctly. In the Commerce stream, students in Palwal and Rohtak and in Arts stream, students in Hisar answered all questions correctly.
He said that in case there was difference of 20 per cent between results of monthly assessment and this monitoring, then it would be assumed that the results of monthly assessment were tampered with. He said that January 20, 2017 had been fixed as the tentative date for the next examination and the level of questions to be asked during this examination would be enhanced, he added.
He said that assessment was conducted of the teaching tasks of each teacher, learning level of student, and learning level according to subjects being taught and class of the student. The students were given more than a week to prepare for the test, which comprised five questions of each subject taken from monthly examination organised in November, 2016. After the examination, students exchanged their answer sheets and were told the correct answers and assessed the answers of their peers, on the basis of which the officer carrying out assessment prepared score sheet of the class. Schools were informed about class-wise and subject-wise average performance on the basis of this assessment, and the results were aggregated on district level, he added.
The schools which have failed to achieve the normative level of performance have been warned and would be monitored again after three months. A meeting of staff and members of management committees of schools was also held to enhance the role being played by monitoring officers in progress of education, he added.