Keeping students on the right track

Bhuswal, Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh)

Navya was fond of mathematics but struggled with Hindi when she joined class one at the Primary School at Bhusawal Buzurg village in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. She did not know this, but her class teacher Meenakshi Tripathi, was watching out for her and tracking her performance closely.

For Tripathi, the tracker is an invaluable teaching aid that helps her monitor her students and help them reach their learning outcomes. “The performance tracker is like a database which helps me identify what subject or topic a student is having trouble grasping,” she told Gaon Connection.

In Navya’s case, after observing her fora few days, Tripathi placed her in ‘Group A’. Children in this group had to stay back after school for an hour and they received special attention in the subject they were lagging behind in. It was a remedial class.

Two weeks into remediation, Navya’s grasp of Hindi improved significantly, and very soon she did not have to stay back that extra hour after school.

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Tripathi who joined this school as an assistant teacher in 2020, is often to be seen closely studying a big register that is the performance tracker of her class. She regularly updates it. The tracker is part of the ‘teacher guides’ provided by the education department of the state government under the NIPUN (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy), launched by the Union Ministry of Education, in July 2021.

The objective of this programme is to focus on early learning and proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic at the foundational level, especially in classes one, two and three in the government primary schools.

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Linking tracker to remediation

“These teacher guides that we receive have made classroom teaching smooth. We are guided by a specialised module which helps us produce better results in less time. The tracker helps me pinpoint the real time progress of my pupils,” Tripathi explained.

It is on the basis of the tracker’s findings that the students in the class are provided remedial classes.

According to the teacher, the remedial classes are carried out in such a way that the students who are in it do not feel slighted.

“We ensure that the children do not feel They don’t feel any less than the other kids. If done right, we have seen how after remediation the children become confident and more forthcoming about any doubts they may have in class. They open up,” Tripathi said.

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Skits help students come out of shell

The students are also encouraged to participate in class performances.

Ansh Yadav and his classmate Raunak Singh, both seven years old, love to participate in the skits directed by their class teacher.

“I like to play the role of the clever fox. I like to outwit others,” Ansh told Gaon Connection.

Raunak likes cats and is excited that he is to play one in one of the skits. “I like to be a cat because it is very active and playful. Also, it can cross rooftops and climb walls very easily,” he told Gaon Connection.

Along with entertainment, the role play also subtly tells the children about the good and the bad, the right and the wrong. They are also a great way to track the various performance parameters of the students

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“These skits are recommended by the lesson plans and teacher guides we have received as study material from the education department. These activities help rid students of their shyness,” she said. And, all these facts are entered into Tripathi’s performance tracker.

“I think the sarkaari school in the village is better than the private schools that have recently opened in the area. It is good to see Navya getting confident in just three months of schooling,” Bindu Devi, Navya’s mother, told Gaon Connection.