A small group ofteachers from governmentand government-aided schoolswill hold preparatory classes from Tuesday, amid the Puja vacation, for students who have performed poorly in the two summative tests held so far.
This will help the students plug their learning gaps before they write Madhyamik exam next year. In all, 84 students have enlisted for the preparatory classes scheduled to be held from October 18 to 22 at the Sanskrit Collegiate School in College Street in north Kolkata. The schools at the secondary and higher secondary level will reopen on October 28.
Debabrata Mukherjee, the head of the Sanskrit Collegiate School, said they had circulated a message among teachers and guardians of six schools — Sanskrit Collegiate School, Bethune School, Government Sponsored Multipurpose School for Boys, Taki House, Hindu School, Hare School and Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya — in early October about the preparatory classes.
Students were asked to get enlisted by October 7. “Out of the 19 students of our school who will attend preparatory classes, some performed poorly in the summative tests, exposing an acute learning deficiency that was registered during the Covid-induced shutdown. The on-campus classes held so far have not been enough to take care of the lacunae,” Mukherjee said.
Students in these schools are assessed through a combination of summative exams and a test (rehearsal exam) be-fore Madhyamik.
Swagata Basak, the head-mistress of Taki House, said a section of students are not able to write the answers be-cause they are struggling to comprehend the question. “I teach life science. I found they were not being able to answer to the point because their comprehension skill has suffered a loss,” said Basak.
This year, the board exams were held on a truncated syllabus because physical schools remained shut.
A teacher of Sanksrit Collegiate School said the answerscripts of the second summative tests showed that the situ-ation has not improved.
“Problems like students being unwilling to write long paragraphs and struggling to construct sentences continue to persist,” he said.