Class IX and X under Parho Punjab ambit, baseline tests begin for 4.1 lakh students

Around 4.1 lakh Class IX and X students of government schools are going to join their juniors in the state education department’s ‘Parho Punjab’ project, which was earlier limited to Classes VI-VIII.

Aiming at improving the results of Punjab School Education Board, four skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing – have been included to analyse the learning level of the students.

Baseline tests for English and social studies will be conducted across the state from May 3 to 9. After that an “enhancement programme” will be launched for weak students.

As part of analysing the listening skill, an audio clip has been sent to teachers on WhatsApp. The teachers will make the students listen to that clip, after which questions regarding the topic, will be asked. Following this, the teachers can make their own audios from syllabus. Similarly, for speaking and writing, pictures and key words will be provided and students will be asked to speak and write five sentences by using those pictures and key words respectively.

The baseline tests will also be conducted for maths and science subjects. A training of these subject teachers is also going on. A total of 22 district-level and 217 block-level mentors have been appointed.

A mentor said that every year board classes, particularly Std X, results go down only because of poor performance in English and social studies. “In 2017, 1.7 lakh students failed in both the subjects, including 93,100 in English in Class X,” said the mentor.

Parho Punjab was introduced for around 8 lakh students from Class VI to VIII last year to enhance their skills from learning English alphabets to reading stories, improving vocabulary and so on.

Pratham, a non-profit organisation, which has been testing the actual learning level of the students in government schools for the past several years, has been providing support in content development programme.

“We have included Classes IX and X too under Parho Punjab from this academic session. It will certainly improve the learning level of the students and result in boards. Easy and interesting learning techniques have been adopted to develop these skills,” said Harpreet Kaur, State Project Coordinator for English and Social Studies under Parho Punjab.
News Source (Indian Express)