Gujarat: To improve learning level, govt launches Mission Vidya

The state government on Thursday launched a month-long campaign, ‘Mission Vidya’, to raise learning levels of students who scored low in the latest Gunotsav VIII evaluation.

Out of a total 21,68,214 students from Class VI to VIII who underwent an evaluation under Gunotsav VIII in April this year, as many as 3,03,549 students of government schools failed to do simple mathematics. In writing skills, 2,81,867 students failed, and 2,16,821 students could not read simple sentences. For these students, who are referred to as ‘priya balak’ (dear students), the campaign will be flagged off by Chief Minister Vijay Rupani from Bhuj on Friday.

The campaign will continue till August 31 under which “remedial teaching” of three hours — two during school time and one after the school — will be imparted in government primary schools in 250 talukas of the state.

The state Education Department has prepared a special curriculum for these students and roped in 292 IAS, IPS and IFS officers who have been assigned responsibilities in their respective areas.

“On the pattern of Gunotsav, they will visit their assigned schools in districts during the campaign. At the end of this campaign, an independent third-party evaluation of all these students will be carried out,” Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said.

As first reported by The Indian Express on June 27, to achieve the target that all students of government schools in the state are able to read, write and calculate, help is being sought from retired faculty members as well as officials of other departments.

The Education Minister and Chief Secretary J N Singh have also directed all the District Collectors to ensure the campaign’s effective implementation. In addition to this, the CM had also interacted with 70,000 teachers at 22,000 centres through Bhaskaracharya Institute of Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG) for the campaign.

The campaign was also discussed at length during a meeting held in Ahmedabad on July 13 which was attended by over 1,000 District Education Officers (DEOs), District Primary Education Officers (DPEOs), Cluster Resource Centre (CRC) and Block Resource Centre (BRC) co-ordinators, District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) principals and lecturers, language teachers.
News Source (Indian Express)