Happy 2nd Birthday Telangana!

The baby turns two years :)

Telangana state formation day 

So happy to see the new state Telangana has completed two years. Massive changes in the new state. Especially in school education there has been a big transition. All the schools of Telangana are following CCE pattern. Successfully we are entering into the third year. Wishing all Telanganaities a happy future ahead.

Haritha Haaram - A mass tree plantation campaign in the state of Telangana

National Forest Policy of India envisages a minimum of 33% of the total geographical area under forest / tree cover to maintain environmental stability and ecological balance; that are vital for sustenance of all life-forms, human, animal and plants.

Telangana state government have launched Haritha Haaram (green belt). A mass tree plantation program in the state of Telangana. People from all corners of the society are expected to plant more trees in the state to stretch the green belt. Schools, Colleges, Institutes, govt. and private sectors, housing societies are involved in this campaign. 

‘‘Five decades under Andhra Pradesh has destroyed our forests. It is the responsibility of the people to repair the damage through this massive afforestation campaign. Haritha Haaram cannot be successful by one Chandrasekhar Rao, it will succeed only with public participation. We have to increase forest cover for ecological balance,” Telangana CM, KCR said to the press meet in Sangareddy.

Many schools had participated in the rallies and tree plantation campaign. Our Red Cross Govt. Girls High School students have come up with appealing placards for the Haritha Haaram rally.

That's a good move by the new government. Hope this campaign will grow like a banyan tree.

Sources: http://www.tkhh.org/

A new take on evaluation, CCE pattern in the state of Telangana

Exams are here. Mug-up, by heart, memorize and reproduce in the exam. After all, we need good figures at the end of the academic year.Education in those days was figures in the progress card. If you get 95% marks you are the best student in the school.

I used to study the whole year day and night, and get just pass marks, where as my friends who study just a month before exams used to get excellent scores. Evaluation was merely concerned with facts delivered in the paper. Is this a right way to evaluate learning...?

The revolutionary change in the evaluation system has brought by the centre through CCE - Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation pattern. This enable the teacher to overlook all the qualities of the pupil through out the year. Starting from daily assignments, projects, oral and written tests, non-scholastic such as behavior, games, etc are counted in CCE pattern.
This is the first time for the state of Telangana implementing CCE pattern full fledged. Of course, they've come up with few more modifications in the CCE pattern.



Few highlights -

• It's not semester model
• 80 marks for written exam and 20 marks for internal assessment(projects, home works etc)
• Questions are designed in such a way to test seven skills of the kid - information, communication, appreciation, aesthetic sense, application to daily life, experimentation, field investigation
• Questions given at the end of the text book will not be seen the exam. Instead they're asked in different scenarios.
• In evaluation, teachers should consider all the answers from students' point of view

There are so many questions arising in every nook and corner. Teachers got used to stereo type evaluation, this model will perhaps give space for bias in evaluation. Students got used to by-heart the content, they feel like out of water to answer application model questions. One should have minimum writing skills to answer an application model question. Few teachers argue, pupils of tenth standard will undergo mental trauma to digest this pattern as they got used to traditional model.

A small survey conducted in some schools, here is teachers' view on the new CCE pattern -

Related links:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/cce-learning-beyond-textbooks/article6655765.ece

Sneak peak of a primary school

I went on a holiday to my husband’s home town. It’s a remote village at Komorole Mandal, Prakasham District, in A.P. There are around 70 to 80 houses in that village. The unique thing in this hamlet is, all are Muslim families. You can't see any other religion except Islam in this village.

Daily I used to see some guys hanging out at a place. It was govt. Primary School. The guys sit on the compound wall of the school to chit-chat, it's like a time pass center for them.

I peeped into the school on a fine day. The total strength of the school was 10 pupils; they included 1st to 4th standard students. It was Saturday, and the strength on that day was just seven (out of ten). All the four classes have to sit together in a single room. And its a single teacher school.  

I got to spend some time with the pupils in the class. I interacted with the kids through some games and activities.
First I conducted a vocabulary game in their native language. It was not going good with their vocabulary knowledge. 

Then I tried a simple game, recognizing colors. Hardly, one or two pupils named the colors I displayed. But when asked for examples for the color I displayed, they gave plenty of examples. 

I started rewarding the pupils with chocolates for correct answers to boost their enthusiasm.

Basically, the students in the school are Muslims, they speak a kind of Urdu in their homes. But at school, they were taught in Telugu medium. For an average student it takes one year to learn the alphabets of the target language. The school teacher is concentrating only on alphabets the whole year for all the four standards.

Asad Wali, Std I, drawing model of bangle, an example of circle shape.

Kausar, Std III, drawing model of face, an example of circle shape.

From left, Jilani, Std III. He is good and active in studies. But lack of cleanliness, he takes bath or changes his dress once in two weeks.From right, Rasool Std III, he can't speak properly, tongue twisting issue.  

"I never beat my students, if I do so pupils will drop out. Earlier the strength in the school was 18 to 20 pupils. But now, it got reduced to 10 pupils. Teachers won't get interest to teach less strength. Even though I am trying my best to teach them"

"Parents in the village are not willing to send their kids to government schools. As a result, private schools are popping up in every village.Now a days, parents are leaned to English medium schools than native language schools. Hence government schools are becoming empty." explained the school teacher, Mr.Satyanarayana, when asked the reason for depleting strength.

There are so many government schools in the states of Telangana and A.P. running with less than 10 pupils in a school. The new government has decided to shut down the schools with less than 20 pupils and merge these school to near by schools. According to the the present records there are around 2000 schools in the state of Telangana come under this category which are going to shut down in this academic year.

source: http://epaper.eenadu.net/svww_index1.php