Declare 2022-23 the year to cope with learning loss: Vinod Kumar

State Planning Board Vice Chairman, B. Vinod Kumar has suggested to the Central and State governments to declare the 2022-23 academic year the year of ‘coping up with learning loss’ as school students have immensely suffered academically and loss of learning abilities.

Mr. Vinod Kumar, who released the findings of national survey on “Learning Loss in School Education during the Pandemic”, said school students cannot be faulted for the pandemic and it was the responsibility of the teachers to plug their learning gaps through special measures, and the government should come out with a draft on this to be adopted by the school managements in both government and private sectors.

The survey was conducted by the National Independence Schools Alliance (NISA) and some of its findings include students suffering from loss of reading skills apart from writing and understanding challenges. The big challenges were seen in languages and mathematics with one in three students struggled in mathematics across rural and urban areas.

Referring to the findings of the survey, Mr. Vinod Kumar said he would bring this serious issue to the notice of the Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao and how the students can be brought back to the learning platform. The learning abilities were seriously affected as students stayed away from classrooms for nearly two years. “If we don’t bring them back on the learning curve this gap would continue to haunt them forever. This is more so in the rural and semi-urban schools, and also in majority of urban schools except international schools,” he felt.

Mr. Vinod Kumar felt that teachers have to be sensitised apart from parents in understanding the poor academic show and lessened learning capabilities. Let the students not be chided or derided for poor performance in the exams for sometime and this is important to infuse confidence among them, he argued. One of the aspects to be considered is creating bridge course with the curriculum lost in the two years and containing key chapters that help students in understanding the higher classes better.

E. Prasada Rao, Research Convenor, and Y. Shekhar Rao, president of Telangana Recognised School Managements Association (TRSMA), said the survey came up with interesting recommendations from the students of lower classes who wanted learning through practical methods than book-based learning. The survey was done with samples from across the country including Telangana.