Deputy Chief Minister (CM) and Education Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia launched another ambitious project of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) – Mission Buniyaad – for children of classes III to IX in government and municipal corporation schools on Wednesday.
Concerned over the low learning level of children in these classes, the government decided to launch a three-month campaign at the beginning of the academic year 2018-19 to make all students at Delhi government, Municipal Corporations, NDMC and Delhi Cantonment board schools be able to read, write and do basic math operations.
As per the National Achievement Survey 2017 data released by NCERT last month, Delhi government school students were found to have lowest learning levels in these classes. During the campaign, two-three hours of focused activities will be conducted by the school teachers every day with all those students of classes III to IX who cannot read their textbooks or solve basic numerical problems to strengthen their reading, writing and math skills. The campaign will continue through May and June.
According to the Deputy CM, special efforts are being made by the government to reach out to the parents through advertisements on FM channels, mega parent teachers meetings (PTMs) and letter to the parents to convince them to stay back in Delhi for the entire duration of the campaign and send their child to school.
Highlighting the fact that inability of children to read and write fluently is basically a reflection of the failure of the school system, Sisodia said, "This situation puts children in a seriously disadvantaged situation to acquire further learning. And the unfortunate part is that the school system instead of owning its own failure projects it on children and their parents as if it is they who are at total fault."
Earlier in 2016, the Delhi government had successfully launched 'reading meals' in its schools to turn non-readers into readers under its "chunauti scheme"
FOR CLASSES 3-5
- All students can fluently read a short story with comprehension in Hindi/Urdu.
- Write short sentences in Hindi/Urdu.
- Solve subtractions with borrowing and simple 2 digits by 1 division in numerical and word problem form.
