By October 73,827 children studying in government schools across Bangalore from classes II to VII will have better reading skills.

That is the aim of the Karnataka learning partnership (KLP), a public –private partnership between Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Akshara foundation, which was launched on Wednesday by minister for primary and secondary education Basavaraj Horatti.

The KLP also announced the first phase of the Accelerated Reading programme (ARP) across 1,411 Government schools in nine educational blocks over three months, which began on July 3. The results of the programme will be monitored scientifically every fortnight and uploaded on the website wwwkarnatakalearningpartnership.org.

“The results will be given along with various details like age, gender, school etc. to enable interpretation,” Akshara Foundation chairperson Rohini Nilekani said.

The ARP is being implemented by 4,335 government school teachers, who were trained in May this year, by the foundation, government master resources personnel (MRP) and cluster resource personnel (CRP).

The baseline test for the ARP was administered by 1,83,431 children where it was found that 45 percent needed remedial attention. “This coincides with the Karnataka state quality assurance organization (KSQAO) results that stated that over 40 percent of the children were unable to read properly”, said Nilekani.

The 45-days learning to read programme involves teachers read out through 45 story cards each for one working day and student learn to read them too. As money as 3.3 million cards have been designed. Assessment, which involves reading out aloud of simple paragraph, will take place after every 15th working days- on July 25, August 22 and in September end or October.

Horatti said that based on the ARP results, the programme would be taken in to other parts of the state, especially north Karnataka. “Before August 15, a blue print of the current state of education as well as the action plan till 2010 will be prepared.”

SSA state project director L K Ateeq said Nali Kali, an activity- based; learning with more emphases on maps and colorful learning aids has been introduced in 8,000 government schools where literacy levels are low.

Teachers’ recruitment : The minister also announced that 14,000 high school teachers will be appointed this year.