2017, a landmark year in the filed of education

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Year 2017 has been yet another landmark year in the field of education due to ‘Education For All & Quality Education’ guided policy actions and decisions enabling transformation that emphasized on making education Available, Accessible, Affordable and Accountable.

A frequent criticism against the RTE Act was that it did not adequately focus on issues promoting quality education in schools. Therefore, in a landmark step, the Rules to the RTE Act were amended in February 2017 to include, for the first time, the classwise, subjectwise Learning Outcomes till Class VIII emphasizing the importance of quality education.

In this regard, Learning Outcomes for each class in languages (Hindi, English and Urdu), Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Science and Social Science up to the elementary stage have been developed. These are the basic levels of learning that children should arrive at the end of each class, according to a PIB release.

Subsequently, 21 States and UTs including Jammu and Kashmir, have incorporated the Learning Outcomes in their State Rules while the remaining states have initiated the process and it is expected that this will be completed by the end of this year.

All the States and UTs have translated the Learning Outcomes document in their regional languages and they are circulating these to all the teachers and also providing them with the requisite training. Posters for display of Learning Outcomes on the schools along with leaflets on Learning Outcomes for reference of parents have been developed and circulated to all States and UTs. A fund of Rs. 91.20 crore has been released by the MHRD to all States and UTs for printing the Learning Outcomes documents, the Posters and the leaflets in regional languages and for their distribution.

National Achievement Survey (NAS), which was earlier based on textbook content, is now a competency based evaluation. As compared to only 4.43 lakh students who were earlier tested across Classes 3, 5 and 8, this time around 22 lakh students from around 1,10,000 schools across 700 districts of India (including rural and urban) were assessed in 2017-18 (November 13, 2017) making it one of the largest sample surveys of student learning achievement, according to the PIB release.

This survey is an improvement over the previous cycles of NAS as it will be completed in one full academic year. It will reflect the scores of the students and will be able to suggest academic intervention in the same academic year.Through NAS 2017-18, it will be for the first time that the teachers will have a tool to understand what exactly the child should be learning in various classes, how to teach this through activities and how to measure and ensure that children have reached the required level.