Students of Haryana govt school make the grade with saksham exam

In September a test was conducted to check the learning levels of the students from classes 3 to 8 in Haryana government school under the ‘saksham ghoshna’ examination but the result was unimpressive. 

Again in February, five months later, the state government again held the exam. The authorities heaved a sigh of relief. “The result has been a huge success. The assessment of the students’ papers was done by a third party, “ Dr Rakesh Gupta, project director, chief ministers good governance associates (CMGGAs), said that “From next year, we have decided to assess students of Classes 9 and 10 also. English will be another subject for this exam.”

TESTING COMPETENCE

The ‘saksham’ is a three-year-old Haryana programme is an initiative of the education department to access and then improve the learning levels of the government school students. This September exam was conducted on a random basis in 5,500 schools selected from 119 blocks of 22 districts. 

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“In the September exam, no block was declared saksham. But in the February exam, 22 blocks from across 14 districts were assessed as saksham in all 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 grades,” a government spokesperson said. According to the data, 64,793 students of the third middle standard opted for the exam in February. The largest number of students that have been taken part in this exam were 6,619 that is in Hisar, district,  while Faridabad recorded the lowest attendance with 1,152 students. Meanwhile, in Karnal district, 3,215 students were assessed in comparison to 3,975 students of Sirsa. In nine districts each, more than 3,000 students appeared in the exam. 

The students of the classes 3 to 5 were assessed in Hindi Mathematics, and EVS, while Classes 6 to 8 pupils took the science, mathematics, social studies and Hindi papers across the state’s 119 blocks.

SCORING PRACTICE

A block gets the tag of ‘saksham’ where more than 80% of the students score over 50% marks in the ghoshna exam. Another level is ‘near saksham’ where more than 60% students have to score over 50% marks, while a block is ‘not saksham’ if less than 60% students score over 50% marks. Dr Gupta said 93 blocks were declared saksham in Class 5, while in Classes 6 and 8 almost half of the blocks were saksham with 64 and 65 blocks, respectively, achieving this benchmark. At least 40 blocks made it to saksham in grade 7. A block is disqualified where data analysis indicates mass cheating.

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