Gunotsav: A holistic initiative to celebrate quality of education in elementary stage

GUWAHATI, March 3: Every student must receive quality education which will eble their persolity, talent and ability and to live a full and satisfying life within society. The aims of education go far beyond acquiring numeracy and literacy skills. The right to education is not only the right to access education but also the right to receive an education of good quality. Education must be available and accessible but also acceptable and adaptable. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human persolity and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. 
Quality of education is not an easy concept to qualify. When we discuss about quality education for all our learners it is important for us to understand the concept. Quality determines how much and how well children learn and the extent to which their education translates into a range of persol, social and developmental benefits. Over the years, various initiatives have been taken for improved Learning Outcomes. These include development of textbooks, implementation of activity based learning, capacity building of teachers and engagement of teachers with professiol qualification. 
Quality of education is a major concern of the state Government. In order to achieve the bestest quality for the future generation of the country, the state government has implemented ‘Gunotsav’ which will not only help to upgrade the quality of education but also would help children to develop and grow in school environments that are supportive and at the same time challenging, which nurture them to become confident, have good self-esteem and willing to strive forward yet at the same time feel a sense of responsibility towards others in their community.
Major Objectives of the Gunotsav : 
•To assess each child as mandated under CCE to identify learning gaps. 
•To ensure learning enhancement and achievement of learning outcomes by all children at elementary level.
•To assess the performance of schools on areas viz. curricular, co-curricular, availability and utilization of infrastructure, community participation etc.
•To indicate learning gaps and to design effective strategies to meet up these gaps. 
•To ensure greater participation of all stakeholder starting from teachers, students, administrators, communities and enhance accountability among them for quality education.
•To support the school and education system to improve the quality of education and ensure better functioning of schools. 
Government of Assam has planned to implement Gunotsav in phased manner across the state. The first phase is planned in 8 districts viz. Barpeta, Chirang, Dibrugarh, Hailakandi, Kamrup(M), Lakhimpur, Morigaon & West Karbi Anglong. In the first phase a total of 9,11,588 children and 12,320 schools shall be covered. The assessment of children from Class-II to Class-VIII shall be covered from all Government/Provincialised/Tea Garden Maged/Composite Schools of the districts and in 5 mediums viz. Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, Hindi and English. 
Assessments shall be done in the following areas:
1.Scholastic
2.Co scholastic
3.Availability and Utilization of school Infrastructure and other facilities
4.Community participation
The weightage of assessment shall depend upon the course covered in the academic session i.e. 90% weight age of assessment will given on course of previous academic year class and 10% shall be from the current year. The mode of assessment shall be both in oral and written form. The mode of assessment for Lower Primary shall be both in oral and written form and shall be recorded in Optical Mark Recognisation (OMR) by the teachers. In case of Upper primary classes (Class VI to Class VIII) the assessment shall be done also through Optical Mark Recognisation (OMR) sheets and the ture of the question paper shall be multiple type choice questions. 
The assessment shall be done in two ways - Self Assessment and Exterl Assessment. The self assessment shall be conducted by schools for all children on 4th April 2016, by assessing the reading skills of children; as well as there shall be assessment of other areas in presence of School Maging Committees (SMC) and Community members. Both the results shall be recorded in the prescribed format. On 5th,6th ,7th  April, 2017, evaluation of these Schools will be conducted by Exterl Evaluators. The team of Exterl Evaluator comprises of Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam, Hon’ble Ministers of the State, Hon’ble MLAs, Chief Secretary to the Government of Assam, Senior IAS, IPS, IFS officers, and Class–I & II officers of the State Government. A total of 4,319 Exterl Evaluators shall be involved in this noble exercise across all eight Gunotsav districts. They are assigned to visit 3 schools each on 5th, 6th and 7th  April, 2017. 
The Reading, Writing & Numeracy Skill of 20% children from Class-II to Class-V (selected randomly by the Exterl Evaluators) in every school will be evaluated in the presence of the Exterl Evaluators. For children of Class-VI to Class-VIII, evaluation of writing and numeracy skill will be conducted in presence of Exterl Evaluator as well. For evaluation of reading skills in all schools, 20% of the children (selected randomly by the Exterl Evaluators) will be evaluated in presence of the Exterl Evaluators.
After assessment, record of performance of each child for each subject will be generated and report card for the school will also be generated. Adequate remedial package will be developed as per learning gaps of children to bring about desirable improvement in the learning level of children. 
 Expected outcomes: 
The programme is expected to.
•Help in tracking of each child; continuation of education up to elementary level.
•Help in identification of learning level and learning gap up to class VIII.
•Help in holistic diagnosis of school for better performance.
•Bring awareness amongst all and ensure all  stakeholder’s participation
•Help reducing dropout rate.
•Increase Teachers’ Accountability.