It’s not just the pandemic but several other factors too have contributed to the poor performance of students in the Class X and Intermediate results that were out recently, opine educationists here.
Heavy syllabus, tough question papers, dull and drab online classes, switchover to English medium, inadequate teaching faculty and reforms in the education system without preparing the students for the same are being cited among the reasons.
The syllabus continued to be heavy even after the authorities made some changes. It was a truncated academic year with only about 120 working days as against the normal 180 days owing to the fresh wave of COVID-19. In such a situation, a majority of the 10th class students found the going tough. Moreover, the blueprint for setting questions has been followed more in breach. As per the blueprint, even average students should be able to answer 80% of the questions. Only 10% of the questions should be slightly tough and the rest can be tougher to test the ability of the cream of students, explains a teacher from a State-run school on condition of anonymity.
Government school teachers were burdened with too much non-academic work like uploading information on the several apps introduced by the school education authorities. The headmasters posted in remote villages as also tribal areas faced network problems or insufficient capacity of servers. “The prolonged time taken for uploading information left them with too little time for teaching. The situation is worse in the schools run by single teachers,” explains a United Teachers’ Federation State council member K. Veeranjaneyulu.
Online effects
The online classes proved to be a bane for a majority of students given the poor internet connectivity, especially in villages close to the Nallamala forests in Prakasam district. It has been observed that most of the students were distracted during online classes as some mischievous students hijacked the digital classes and posted extraneous videos, reveals a group of students from a corporate school here. Also many students did not pay attention to the teachers in the absence of an eye-to-eye contact during classroom teaching.
On the other hand, the examinations held for the first time after COVID-19 caught a majority of the students unaware as they were hoping for the authorities to pass all the students in the wake of an imminent fresh wave of coronavirus, based on their internal marks as in the past. They remained complacent as a result, some feel.
Huge allocation
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh School Education Monitoring and Regulatory Commission member V. Narayana Reddy feels that the State government has taken up bold reforms to improve the quality of education and made a massive allocation of Rs.29,000 crore. “The government schools are being affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education in phases and the Zilla Parishad schools are being upgraded as Intermediate colleges as part of the education system revamp plan,” he explains. The positive effect of the changes will be visible in the future, he adds.
