Relevance: GS-2: Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources;

Key Phrases: UNICEF, Learning Loss, Kalika Chetarike, Teacher-Learning-Materials (TLMs); Comprehensive teacher handbook; Pedagogical approaches; master resource persons (MRPs); Core Committee

Context

• As per UNICEF, COVID has caused Learning Loss. Most of this loss has happened in Middle Income and Low income countries.
• In this light the interventions by Karnataka is worth taking note of.+

Key Highlights

• Kalika Chetarike (‘learning recovery’ in Kannada) is a comprehensive programme of Karnataka Government to recover lost learning across all classes in schools.
• Following are the learnings from this initiative which can be replicated:
• Acceptance of Learning Loss
  • The Karnataka government has publicly communicated that there has been a massive learning loss which must be recovered.
  • Prioritised the bridging of this learning loss as the target of the next academic year.
  • Such clarity is central to aligning everybody to do their best in this massive task of recovering lost learning among millions of children.
• Clear and specific communication to all stakeholders
  • The instruction was issued to every teacher, principal, school and all education department officials that this year all efforts must be directed at recovering lost learning.
  • The plans being laid out must be executed with complete focus and teachers must not try to complete the current year’s syllabus without learning recovery.
  • This would lead to a big difference to resourcing and actions on the ground.
• Systematic planning
  • In order to arrive at what would be educationally effective and operationally executable, rather than haphazard jump into action
  • A qualified team has been put together from across the state to execute this plan.
• Reviewing the curriculum and redesigning the syllabus for all classes.
  • This has been done to reduce the content load without compromising learning outcomes.
  • It is also a very fine balance, necessary at the level of specifics to enable reduction without losing desired outcomes.
• Support material to teachers
  • A portfolio of Teaching–Learning-Materials (TLMs) has been developed to help support teachers in the classroom to recover lost learning.
  • Such TLMs will address children at different levels who are in the same class due to learning loss
• Envisioned Student Assessment parameters for teachers
  • A comprehensive teacher handbook has been developed to guide the teacher on how to act optimally in the classroom.
  • How to assess which child is at what level, how to group them together, which set of TLMs to refer to, and which might be the relevant chapters in the existing textbooks.
  • This is necessary to cater to children who are at widely different levels of learning in the same classroom, who will also recover lost learning at different speeds, and therefore they need appropriate pedagogical approaches.
• Training MRPs
  • A detailed plan has been developed for training 2,000 master resource persons (MRPs) who, in turn, will train the 250,000 teachers involved.
  • Care is being taken to identify good teachers to be trained as MRPs so as to maintain the quality of training.
• Logistics and Operations Planning
  • For example, the printing of TLMs, their distribution, training locations and more are all included.
• Core committees have been formed to help execute the entire plan.
  • Their mandate is to eliminate all obstacles that come in the way of recovering lost learning.

Conclusion

• The School Education department of Karnataka deserves kudos not only for this rigorous planning but also for the courage to confront the matter directly. The success of the scheme will be based on its implementation in spirit, but they have taken the right steps from the perspective of policy formulation.

Source: Live-Mint

Mains Question:

Q. Explain Kalika Chetarike, Karnataka’s efforts to recover from learning loss. Also mention the benefits of this scheme.