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| Edited By: Sanjay Jog |Source: DNA |Updated: Jan 19, 2019, 05:25 AM IST
The recently released Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has given state education minister Vinod Tawde much to be chuffed about.
The report says that conducting aptitude tests, focussing on practical knowledge and encouraging teacher to come up with innovative ways of teaching methods has drawn more children to schools, made them stay and upped their performance.
In an exclusive interview Tawde talks about other measures that helped alter standard of government schools in the state.
Maharashtra has fared better in 2018 than 2017. There is a marked improvement in the performance of students from primary schools, and their ranking is better than the national average.
Students from zilla parishad (ZP) schools have performed better than their counterparts in private schools — again here, the state has fared better than the national average. The students have shown a 30 per cent performance improvement in Mathematics and 15 per cent in languages.
Maharashtra has scored better in attendance, infrastructure, sports facilities and out-of-school students than the national average.
All of this is the result of hard work and innovation put in by the teachers. Focussing more on practical knowledge than theoretical has helped us.
The Maharashtra Education Progress Programme aims at improving quality of education. The department has been conducting annual baseline and aptitude tests for the past four years. These have helped nearly 14 lakh students choose careers.
Educational fair is another annual ritual where teachers present ideas on bringing in innovation in teaching and improving governance. To promote reading, the birth anniversary of Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is celebrated as Reader's Day.
Lastly, the teaching facilities of zilla parishad schools has improved so much that about 34,000 students, across the state, have switched over from English-medium private schools to Marathi-medium ZP schools. Our students are at par with those in private schools.
These are smaller states, with several lakh students, while there are 2.30 crore students in Maharashtra's government schools (from Class 1 to 12). We are trying our best to tackle the hurdles to raise the state's performance.
The percentage has come down significantly, but the matter still needs to be dealt with seriousness. One of the issues is absence of schools nearby, which we are trying to solve.
