The research wing of the education committee, functioning under the Kozhikode district panchayat, has come out with a set of online self-learning modules to help high school students who are backward in studies. According to officials, the students will be able to access the study materials through the official portal of the Deputy Director of Education in a week.
On a trial basis, a portion of the self-learning materials has already been uploaded to a page created on the portal www.ddekozhikode.org. The materials explain the basics of all the eight subjects taught at the high school level. The research team, comprising 45 teachers, did not reproduce the existing lessons as such, but simplified the content to make it palatable for the target group.
Class-level groups
For the effective use of the learning materials, the education committee is now planning to formulate class-level peer groups in around 193 high schools in the district. Training has already been imparted to teachers and class leaders for the purpose. It is also proposed to allot time for students to refer the online content utilising the computer facilities at schools from 3.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
Although IT@School initiative of the Education Department had pioneered a similar project titled ‘E-textbook' in the State, it has not been targeting a specific group of students. According to the officials of the District Education Committee, the new initiative was solely intended for the academically backward students. The committee is also planning to distribute a separate set of printed study materials for the 10{+t}{+h} standard students ahead of their final examinations.
K.K. Sivadasan, Coordinator of Kozhikode District Panchayat Education Committee, told The Hindu on Friday that the project had already been selected for State-level implementation with the support of IT@School initiative of the Department of General Education. A resource team representing the department had recently come to the district to learn about the modules and the way those were prepared, he added.
323 schools in State
According to officials, a new set of self-learning modules would be prepared based on the project piloted in Kozhikode. The target group would be students in around 323 shortlisted high schools in the State, which had been registering low pass percentage for the past several years, they added.
