Some government and government-aided schools in Kolkata have assigned teachers the responsibility of identifying deficiencies among students who could not attend online classes and address what they have missed out on through doubt-clearing sessions after class hours.
Some will hold offline evaluations from early December to get an idea about the learning gap and then take special preparatory classes.
A day after the reopening of schools for students of classes IX to XII, the institutions have begun taking steps to address the mismatch in learning among students, which have stemmed from digital divide.
Subhrojit Dutta, the headmaster of Hindu School, said they had fixed a doubt-clearing session for an hour from 3pm to 4pm till November 30 so students encountering gaps can be taken care of.
“We have an auditorium where the session will be held. The teachers, while conducting online classes all these months, have gathered an idea of the level of comprehension. Now, through the doubt-clearing sessions we will plug any gaps in learning,” said Dutta.
The session can continue beyond an hour if a teacher wants to allot more time. The sessions will continue till November 30 because tests and annual exams begin after that.
Debabrata Mukherjee, the headmaster of Sanskrit Collegiate School, off College Street in north Kolkata, said learning deficiencies were natural for those who could not attend classes over digital platforms because of financial constraints.
“In schools like ours, students from disadvantaged backgrounds take admission. Many of them may not have attended classes online because affording data packs for 20 months was not possible for them. Our teachers will identify those students. From next week, we are planning to hold remedial classes,” he said.
A teacher of the school said remedial classes would mostly be required for English and mathematics. The teachers will meet next Monday to decide on remedies.
“This week will be spent identifying the extent of the deficiency. If the mismatch in learning is not minimised, the teaching-learning process will suffer,” said Mukherjee.
Jadavpur Vidyapith will hold offline evaluations of classes XI and XII from the first week of December to identify the level of learning gap.
The assessment will be the best way to determine the comprehension level and we will take preparatory classes for each subject accordingly, said headmaster Parimal Bhattacharya.
“If preparatory classes are not held, then the students whose bases are weak will struggle to write the board exams that are due in April,” he said.