Hyderabad: Quantifying the learning should be an integral part of the education system. The directive issued by the Centre to the different states in May this year, is largely to this effect. In accordance to the directive, the Telangana state government has amended the rules specified under the Right to Education Act. With the amendment, codifying expected levels of learning for students from Std I to VIII has become mandatory.
School authorities have to prepare class-wise and subject-wise learning outcomes for all classes. They have to also devise guidelines for putting into practice continuous and comprehensive evaluation to achieve the defined learning outcomes.
The ‘Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010’ was issued in undivided AP in March 2011 after the Act was made by previous UPA government at the Centre in 2009. However, after NDA government came to power in May 2014, it sought to make few changes to the RTE Act.
The union ministry of HRD had written to all the states stating that the learning outcomes had been incorporated in the Central Rules to the RTE Act, 2009 by amending Rule 23(2) of the Rules. It had asked all states to incorporate these learning outcomes in the State RTE Rules, 2010.
Accordingly, the TS Education Department has requested the government to amend clause (c) f sub-rule (2) of Rule 25 pertaining to curriculum and evaluation procedures under State RTE Rules, 2010. The government issued orders amending RTE rules on Friday.
With the amendment, this is the first time that learning indicators will be used in the state to assess the children’s learning progress. Learning outcomes are assessment standards which help teachers to understand the learning levels of students in their respective classes, individually as well as collectively.
The state is expected to draft learning outcomes based on the document prepared by NCERT and released earlier this year. The NCERT learning indicators have been finalised for seven subjects—Engli-sh, Hindi, Urdu, Enviro-nmental Science, General Science, Social sciences,
The NCERT document released on January 17 for public feedback, stipulates individual learning indicators for each class.
For instance, the learning indicators that has been set for writing for a Class I is that the student should not just be able to recognize letters A to Z, but also be able to follow and carry out simple simple instructions such as 'shut the door', 'bring me the book'.
In Class II, a student should be able to compose and write simple, short sentences with space between words. The levels have been gradually increased so that by Class VIII, a student would not only read and write, but also use his/ her faculties to read between the lines, understand new concepts, and explore and read other areas of knowledge. This comprehensive, holistic approach towards education may well be the key to a brighter generation, say experts.
