Govt schools in Telangana plan courses to bridge knowledge gap

Hyderabad: With experts fearing severe loss of learning ability among students during the pandemic, government schools will hold bridge courses to cover the syllabus of the last two years. The expectation is that this will help students get back on track, with schools reopening for physical classes from Monday.

The three Rs programme, focusing on reading, writing and arithmetic, will be implemented from pre-primary to the secondary level. It will be for three hours for Classes 2 to 9 during February, along with regular academic teaching.

Activity-based teaching methods using toys and rhymes, and storytelling will be the primary method for nursery, LKG and UKG. Activity-based learning will be extended to Classes 1 and 2. Two hours of extra classes, before and after school hours, will be arranged for Class 10 students, primarily focusing on weaker students.

"Teachers will focus creating an engaging environment as students have lost the knack for studies. Students need regular breaks and a little entertainment to keep them going," said B. Venkatesh, academic monitoring officer, Ranga Reddy district.

It is said that over 12 per cent of students have changed schools and migrated to their villages due to the frequent holidays. It is claimed that 60 per cent of budget schools have shut because of low enrolment as parents shifted their wards to government schools due financial trouble, said Venkatesh.

The RRR programme was followed when classes resumed after the lockdown in October-November 2021.

Communication and behavioural moderation classes will be taken for the first 15 days in private schools affiliated to the SSC Board. This is especially needed for Class 10 students.

"Students are anxious as education minister Sabita Indra Reddy has said she will not let this year's examinations slide, and all students have to write their exams physically. Summative and formative assessments have not been conducted for classC10 students so they have also lost writing practice. Through these classes, we want them to face the (exam) situation," said Telangana Recognised School Management Association state president Y. Shekhar Rao.

Shekhar Rao said most teachers in the private schools will be trained starting Monday to brush up their teaching skills. He said of the 5.2 lakh students who will appear for SSC examinations, but only about 75,000 with access to digital education will perform well.

A budget school principal, Shivarama Krishna said that this is not going to be easy if everything is left to the teachers. Parents, students and tuition teachers, if any, will need to put up concerted effort.