3-month plan to enhance skills in language and mathematics

THE SCHEME, NAMED MISSION BUNIYAAD, WILL TARGET THOSE IN CLASS 3 TO CLASS 9

NEW DELHI : Starting this month, the Delhi government schools have begun a three-month long scheme to improve learning levels of students from Class 3 to 9. The student have been divided into two groups based on their current learning level.

Under the ‘Mission Buniyaad’, the government has asked schools to not teach the regular syllabus to students of class 6, 7 and 8 covered, under it till June 30, and instead focus on strengthening their reading, writing and Mathematics proficiency.

“The students will do reading and writing activities for 90 minutes every day and spend another 90 minutes on improving Maths skills. The focus at present is to make students read and write and only then can we focus on finishing syllabus. From July we will start teaching them regular syllabus,” a government school prin- cipal said.

For the target student group, only Hindi/urdu reading writing, maths activities and foundational English activities using “Let’s learn English” and recently provided “Grammar Book” should be conducted till June end, a government circular to schools said.

Students of Class 3 to Class 5 will participate in reading and writing activities in Hindi or Urdu for at least one hour and similarly spend at least one hour on practising maths problems.

“Apart from one hour each for Hindi/urdu and mathematics, there should be one hour of library activities so that children are encouraged to further read,” the government said.

For class 9, students will take one period of Hindi, Maths and English. “In the remaining period, subjects other than Hindi, Maths and English may be taken with light topics from the first term syllabus,” the circular said.

The government has asked schools to conduct workshop with parents and convince them to not plan their out of station tour during summer vacations and send their ward regularly to attend classes in their school.

The scheme is on line with the government’s previous scheme called Chunauti that assessed students in Class 6 to 9 and divided them into three groups based on their learning levels.

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia had announced the launch of the scheme in February. The move comes after the National Achievement Survey found that most Class 3 and 5 students in government and aided schools performed abysmally in science, mathematics and language.