35% govt elementary school teachers in Punjab don’t know curricular goals

FEEDBACK In the HRD ministry survey, only 65% of 7K teachers said they understood NCERT teaching methodology

CHANDIGARH: One in three teachers of the government-run elementary schools in Punjab does not fully understand the curricular goals, a nationwide survey suggests.

The elementary school teachers admitted this in an assessment carried out by the Union human resource development (HRD) ministry to assess the competency level of government school students of Classes 1to8.

Of about 7,000 elementary teachers surveyed in 22 districts of the state during the National Achievement Survey (NAS) four months ago, only 65% said they fully understood the teaching methodology and class-appropriate learning outcomes recommended by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for government schools across the country. More than half of them teach upper primary classes in government and governmentaided schools.

Teachers had filled up a detailed questionnaire relating to learning outcomes, challenges in classroom transactions, areas of difficulty, availability of resources to implement teaching strategies, understanding of curricular goals, parental involvement and tools and techniques being used by them to assess students in their schools.

School education secretary Krishan Kumar could not be contacted.

While some 58% teachers said they were “highly satisfied” with their job, 22% opined they were overloaded with work, according to the ‘State Learning Report’ shared by the ministry with the Punjab education department. About half of those polled were also not satisfied with parental involvement in children’s achievements or school activities with one in three, describing it as “low”.

Similarly, head teachers, whose views were also taken, admitted that shortage of instruction material, lack of teaching staff, student discipline and lack of adequate audio-visual and library resources were partially or totally affecting teaching-learning activities in government-run schools in the state (see infographic).

The difficulties have been manifested in the competency level of students of Classes 3, 5 and 8 in mathematics, language and environmental science with Punjab figuring among the states in the bottom half. The average achievement score of 69,000-odd students of government and aided schools in Punjab was lower than the national average for all three classes and subjects.

Of 20,500 children of Class 3 who took the test in 1,338 schools across the state, 56% (mathematics), 57% (EVS) and 63% (language) answered questions correctly on an average. The national achievement was five to eight percentage points higher for these areas.

The gap only widened for the other two classes, particularly in mathematics.