Gunotsav to gauge Covid impact on 40L schoolkids, identify learning gaps – Times of India

Adopted from the Gujarat model of the similar school evaluation exercise with the same nomenclature, Gunotsav was started in Assam in 2017 by the BJP-led government to gauge the quality of education, In Gunotsav, ministers, MLAs, IAS, IPS and senior government officials go to schools as external evaluators.

About 42.51 lakh schoolchildren from classes I to IX, studying across 46,251 government, provincialized and tea garden managed-schools are about to be evaluated during this year’s Gunotsav.

Speaking to TOI, mission director of Axom Sarba Siksha Abhiyan, Roshni Aparanji Korati, said the upcoming edition aims at identifying the learning gap due to Covid-19 pandemic. “It’s a quality initiative to identify learning levels of students of classes I to IX and to ensure attaining grade-specific learning outcomes by all children defined by NCERT. Evaluation will be done through both self and external evaluation,” she said.

Evaluation will be conducted on scholastic areas for students and school evaluation on co-scholastic activities, community participation and infrastructure. Scholastic evaluation is conducted on skills (reading, writing and numeracy/basic mathematical operations) and core subject areas (languages, maths, science, EVS and social science).

“Tools of Gunotsav are prepared based on grade-specific learning outcomes. Learning outcome-wise and item-wise performance of children could be generated through the software of Gunotsav,” said Korati.

Gunotsav offers the scope for identification of learning gaps of students and plan remedial support to children for addressing their learning gaps and improve learning outcomes.

During 2020 and 2021, there was substantial loss of instructional time due to the pandemic. Though all-out efforts were made to reach out to children through various interventions — both offline and online — yet Korati admitted that the loss caused by closure of educational institutions for most of the time during the last two academic years cannot be overlooked.

“Training for teachers in the areas where support is required for facilitating effective classroom transactions may also be designed. Gunotsav 2022 will help identify learning gaps due to Covid-19 pandemic and remedial measures may be taken to meet up learning gaps of the children,” she added.