State readies for Saksham status assessment

Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 19

Advertisement

With 26 of its 119 blocks already declared Saksham, Haryana now seems headed towards near-complete coverage of grade-level competence in Hindi and mathematics. The initiative is being upgraded to now declare certain blocks saksham-plus by February-end after ensuring similar competence in English.

The Haryana Government launched the Saksham programme towards the end of 2017 to improve the quality of learning in government schools of the state. A block is declared Saksham if 80 per cent of its students in Classes III, V and VII are at par with the learning levels in Hindi and mathematics expected in their respective classes.

Saksham has been improvised and upgraded to Saksham plus to extend this learning proficiency to English as well.

Sources in the School Education Department said that the remaining 93 blocks of Haryana have volunteered for third party assessment carried out by Grey Matters, an agency based in Hyderabad.

This assessment is likely to take place on February 12. Based on the performance of these classes in the two subjects, the blocks qualifying with 80 per cent grade-level competence will be declared Saksham.

That done, the School Education Department wants to take the programme forward by starting the Saksham plus programme and including English in the quality learning programme.

So far, four blocks —Ateli in Mahendergarh, Bondh Kalan in Charkhi Dadri, Matenhale in Jhajjar and Beri —— have volunteered for assessment in English as well. Interestingly, these were also the first blocks in Haryana to get Saksham status. Sources said that their assessment for Saksham plus status would also be carried out around the same time as that of other blocks which are hoping to be declared Saksham.

The programme to upgrade the learning levels in government schools has met with success following certain interventions carried out by the department which includes rigorous monitoring.

A “zero period” to run a remedial programme has been introduced in the schools where teachers are taking extra classes to raise the level of subject knowledge of the students through fun ways.

Besides providing them a book to help them upgrade the students’ learning levels, they are recording their lessons, thereby creating a digital content repository. These lessons are being circulated to other teachers to help improve their teaching skills as well.

Further, an academic monitoring system is in place for regular evaluation of whatever is taught in these classes. District education officers have been roped in to categorise students based on learning and submit reports of the same. Review meetings are held on a monthly basis at the headquarters level as also by the respective Deputy Commissioners. Once a block volunteers for Saksham status, a third-party assessment is carried out and the outcome decides the status.

Lesson review 

• A block is declared Saksham if 80 per cent of its students in Classes III, V and VII are at par with the learning levels in Hindi and mathematics expected in their respective classes
• 26 of Haryana’s 119 blocks have already been declared Saksham. The remaining 93 blocks have volunteered for assessment that may take place on February 12