Assam serious in adopting Gunotsav: Sarma

GUWAHATI, Oct 23: Assam Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that ‘Gunotsav’ is a convergence exercise involving Sarba Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), State Council of Educatiol Research and Training (SCERT), Directorate of Elementary Education and the Government of Assam. Addressing the master trainers on the first day of the State-level orientation of Gunotsav, a model introduced to develop elementary education in Gujarat with success, Sarma said: “Over the years, various initiatives have been taken for improved learning outcomes. These include development of textbook in the line of NCF, 2005, implementation of activity-based learning, providing training to teachers, engagement of qualified teachers etc. Now, there is an urgent need to focus on assessing the learning outcomes so identifying the learning gaps objectively and providing for necessary remedial measures. In this backdrop, it is proposed to implement ‘Gunotsav’ in the state in the line of Gunotsav being implemented in Gujarat which has been identified as one of the best practices in 12th Five Year Plan. This is a convergence exercise involving SSA, SCERT, Directorate of Elementary Education and State Government of Assam.”

According to the minister, initially, eight districts have been planned to be covered under Gunotsav in the first phase through which comprehensive report card would be provided to each child from Class II-VIII and a report card to each school against various indicators. “It is expected to track the performance of every child, individual learning gap and devising of remedial measures to be taken for improvement through this initiative. It will also help to design need-based planning of training of teachers, improving overall performance of children and to take holistic approach for improvement of the school,” he said, and added: “The Gujarat Government under the strong and dymic leadership of the then Hon’ble Chief Minister and present Prime Minister renda Modi launched a programme called Gunotsav, or 'Celebrating Quality' in the year 2009. Gunotsav is an accountability framework for improving quality of primary education which includes learning outcomes of children along with co-scholastic activities and use of resources including community participation. In Gunotsav the Chief Minister, Education Minister, Ministers of other Departments, MLAs IAS, IPS, IFS and other Grade-I & II officers visit the schools to assess the performance of students as well as other indicators of the school. Their observation and views/comments are taken into consideration while framing policies/strategies in respect of elementary education. The exercise is still continuing in Gujarat as it has brought about the following qualitative changes in elementary education like tracking of continuation of education up to elementary level and learning level up to class VIII of each child; holistic diagnosis of school for better performance; greater  participation of stakeholder for achieving quality outcomes; awareness has been generated  amongst functiories of all department on importance of quality education at elementary level; dropout rate has decreased; teachers’ accountability has increased; seeing the positive change in the field of elementary education, the model has been adopted by states like MP, Rajasthan, Bihar, Orissa, Harya. Gunotsav has also been considered as one of the best practices of India in the 12th Five Year Plan Document.”