For students it’s a break of a different kind by Jayalakshmi K
Deccan Herald
Bangalore, July 9, 2006

The twenty - odd kids are sprawling out on the floor. In pairs, they are reading out from glazed sheets, their fingers tracing the letters. There is much noise and excitement.

The students of Class II, Government Urdu Model Girls School, Frazer Town, are into their second day in the Karnataka Learning Partnership programme. Under the programme, the state education department, along with Akshara Foundation, aims to boost levels of reading among the children, using an innovative story telling method and do it in 45 working days one hour everyday.

The programme is to be officially launched next week. What has been completed is the baseline survey of reading skills of children in the 1400 schools of Bangalore city.

The survey was conducted by teachers who have been trained by Akshara for the programme. It involved assessing each student for his or her reading skills. Those who could not even read an alphabet stood at the 0 level, while the rest fell in the ‘word’ and ‘sentence’ category according to their capability.

Results to be analysed

In a couple of days, all the baseline study results will be in and analysed using computer software. Subsequently, they will be hosted on the official website of the programme.

Headmaster K.Krishnappa, Government Model Primary School, Cleveland Town, notes how the problem of reading is more accentuated in a school like his where students from various other mother tongues are the maximum.

“This makes it difficult for the child to learn Kannada. This programme is good as it goes by stories, and the charts are very colourful. In fact, we have been using such techniques even earlier in our school, but any new initiative towards learning is welcome,” he says.

The baseline clearly shows that the ‘0’ levels are mostly children speaking Telugu, Tamil and Urdu.

However, he as well as others are apprehensive on the time the programme will take away from regular syllabus that has to be completed.

Teachers’ homework

Krishnappa, who is a national award winner for his innovations and improvement of school performance, calls the programme“homework for teachers”.

At the Government Urdu Higher primary Boys School, headmistress Fahima Sultana is also happy with the programme. As one of her teachers Vijayalakshmi notes, “In the Urdu syllabus the language used for classes 3 and 4 in textbooks is very high. The story method which focuses on short stories and big print makes it very highly impacting.”

The baseline study does not show many ‘0’ levels here. Due to large numbers most classes, for now it is only the very weak 20 students who are being involved in the programme. The rest, who are as eager and fascinated by the charts, join along.

Useful methods

Rahat Unissa, an enterprising teacher at the school, is happy with the programme that provides the materials which she used to prepare herself., earlier on. The method is useful, especially for urdu, she says. “The procedure of hiding the words and showing only pictures helps develop expression in the children. They even overcome stage fear”, she adds.

Most teachers agree the method is good, allowing individuals attention for every child. For the children, it looks like a welcome break from the routine of rote learning.

Uncertainty

There is some uncertainty as to whether the same charts used for classes 2-4 should be used for classes 5-7. It does seem a bit too basic for the higher classes.

But with the large numbers of dropouts and irregular attendance, many students in higher classes are lagging in performance levels. They will surely benefit from the programme, feel teachers.

For now there seems to be a unanimous feeling that the initiative can only help build up a strong foundation.