Assessment of scripts of the first summative tests in government and government-aided schools in West Bengal that ended last week revealed some serious learning deficiencies among students, said teachers and the heads of the institutions.
An English teacher in a government school in central Kolkata said students had forgotten how to construct sentences.
The headmaster of a school in north Kolkata said students had copied questions and written them as answers because they seemed to have no idea what to write.
Some students even submitted blank scripts.
Those who managed to write answers showed a lack of comprehension and writing skills, said the head a school.
The learning gaps have become so severe that school heads have decided to hold remedial lessons to plug the deficiencies before students appear for their next summative tests in August.
The state secondary education board last month mandated that schools that could not conduct the first summative tests before the start of the summer vacation from May 2 would have to hold the tests after the reopening of the institutions from June 27.
The schools were told to conduct the tests between June 28 and July 8.
Students in government and aided schools are assessed through a combination of summative and formative tests.
An English teacher in a government school in central Kolkata said the evaluation of scripts had painted a grim picture.
“We found students disinclined to write long paragraphs. They have even forgotten how to construct sentences. The assessment has revealed that they lack basic concepts. They cannot recognise what is a noun, pronoun or adjective. The deficiency is reflected across classes,” the teacher said.
Bipul Bhattacharya, English teacher at Hare School, said: “There are indications of grave learning loss.”
Saugata Basu, a life science teacher at Uttarpara Government School, said a student of Class IX when asked to describe the features of a mammal wrote the features of a reptile. “When asked to give an example of a mammal, he wrote that a snake is a mammal. In my teaching career, I have not seen this kind of deficiency in a student of a senior class,” said Basu.
The prolonged absence from schools because of the pandemic has caused major damage, he said. A prolonged summer vacation that kept students away for longer aggravated this.
“There was a need to conduct classes extensively so the deficiencies could be taken care of. But that exercise was halted because of the prolonged summer vacation,” said Basu, who is also the general secretary of the Government School Teachers’ Association.
“I suspect that the instances of students ending up with exponentially high marks in the board exams over the past two years have made these students less serious about the exams.”
The state government this year brought forward the summer vacation to May 2 on the grounds of “extreme heatwave-like conditions”.
The vacation was extended for another 11 days from June 16 regardless of the fact that it was raining by then.
Summer vacation usually starts from the third week of May and lasts for 18 days maximum.
Supriya Panja, the headmaster of the Park Institution in Shyambazar said that they have received scripts where students have copied the questions and submitted these answers.
“We have decided to conduct remedial classes to correct the learning gaps,” said headmaster Panja.