An opportunity for Chhattisgarh govt to walk the talk on education

By Mitakshara Kumari

Students of Classes 1 to VIII in Chhattisgarh Government schools took a new kind of annual examination this year. They were tested on the extent to which they had mastered competencies prescribed, instead of bits from the syllabus. The significance of the change can be gauged from the fact that teachers and frontline education managers have begun strategising on how to enable students to perform better in the tests, even before the results.

Over the last decade, the debate on education reform has shifted from how to increase enrollments to how to improve quality. Yet national achievement surveys show children are not learning what they ought to. Conversations on poor learning outcomes are harder than on number of schools, toilets, textbooks, midday meals, uniforms, etc.

Chhattisgarh has languished below national average in achievement surveys like Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report or National Achievement Survey. The objective of these new state level assessments (SLAs) is to capture a baseline of learning levels for nearly 30 lakh students in roughly 50,000 government schools and design better instructional support programmes to plug learning gaps and enable stakeholders to deliver quality education.

Using a unique identification number for each student, results from over one crore answer copies are being uploaded on to an SLA app and mapped to specific learning outcomes prescribed by NCERT for each grade. This will provide not only an overall baseline but also a learning map for each student.

Research has shown that assessment alone as a lever of education reform is not always effective in improving student outcomes. Consequently, Chhattisgarh is working on a comprehensive set of initiatives to improve the quality of education following a brainstorming session with key education stakeholders after the new government came to power. Core teams have been tasked to work on specific academic, structural and administrative aspects.

This includes teacher training and professional development, creating high quality teaching learning materials, textbook development and publishing. In addition, school management committees are being revamped to make them more effective. District and cluster-level education bureaucracy is being reorganised to streamline roles and enable officials to provide real academic support to schools. Remedial programmes are being designed for different levels. A new unified digital platform is in the works for tracking individual student progress, as is a teacher training management system.

Another key step that Raipur took earlier this year was to announce a massive recruitment drive for over 14,500 teachers to fill vacancies. This is the largest recruitment drive in the state.

These are ambitious efforts and over the next year or so, as the implementation matures, we will be able to assess its impact and determine what is working and what needs to change.

The reality of under-funded and under-resourced government schools cannot be wished away. In Chhattisgarh these problems are exacerbated by remote geography and Maoist-hit areas.

The need for more funds, buildings, teachers, uniforms, text books remains, but the decision to direct energy and resources towards building foundational skills, effective instructional support, better pedagogy and classroom practices will pay dividends.

Education reforms fail to take off, or fail to sustain, when technical solutions are attempted without adequate attention to evolving the ecosystem or getting buy-in from stakeholders.

Systemic education reform is a complex exercise involving competing interests and changing organisational culture. To drive change there must be political appetite. The challenge of education reform, therefore, is first and foremost a challenge of political will.

For the Congress government in Chhattisgarh, it is an opportunity to demonstrate it can walk the talk.

Through the 2019 Lok Sabha elections the party has focused its campaign on Nyay — bringing people out of poverty, providing quality health care and education, leading to productive employment and a better quality of life is justice.

Delivering on education and health reforms demonstrates political will.

(The author is Adviser, State Planning Commission, Chhattisgarh)