Karnataka will highlight its unique programme of assessing quality of education in government and state-aided schools in a high-level meeting of state education secretaries in the capital.

Karnataka is the first state in the country to embark on such a programme based on testing competency of the students reading in Kannada, Urdu, Marathi, Telegu and Tamil medium schools.

The achievement levels of 21 lakh children studying in classes 2, 5 and 7 were assessed in the first such exercise in January 2006.The three-day meeting organised by the Human Resource Development Ministry began on July 26. It was aimed at assessing progress in elementary education including Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the states and also to solicit their inputs for universalisation of secondary education during the 11th Plan.

Innovative work
“Karnataka has also undertaken an innovative programme of teachers’ training by shifting from institution-based training to a classroom-based one and we will also focus on that,” G Kumar Naik, commissioner for Public Instruction told Deccan Herald.

“Apart from school teachers undertaking a week-long training in cluster resource centres in districts, cluster resource persons (CRP) would visit schools and see the teachers in action,” he said.

Accordingly the CRPs, who are education experts, would visit schools under his or her jurisdiction at regular intervals, attend the teaching sessions and comment on how the teachers could improve instruction.

The Directorate of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT) would be the nodal agency for the training and in the first phase starting from this academic year about 30-40 per cent of the government schools would be covered.

The CRPs would undertake the training programmes on the basis of the findings of Karnataka School Quality Assessment Organisation (KSQAO), which is based on competency-based testing of students’ scholastic learning achievements in all government and government-aided schools.

In the KSQAO, 2007 about 12 lakh children studying in classes 3, 5 and 7 from 20,000 schools were assessed. All the Kannada medium schools, which have scored less than 40 per cent in 2005-06 assessment, were covered by the 2007 survey along with all Urdu, Marathi, Telegu and Tamil medium schools. Another five per cent schools which volunteered to participate were also included. In all 30 per cent of the total number of schools in the State were covered.

Compared to the achievement levels in 2005-2006 the competency of the students have shown an upward trend in 2006-07. While 65 per cent children in class 2 in 2005-06 are competent in Kannada, it rose to 71.30 in next year.

For Mathematics in the same class, the competency level percentage rose from 61 to 72.30. In EVS or Science, there was a slight decline from 78 to 77.30 per cent.