The ongoing Covid-19 crisis is not the only challenge schools are facing in Gujarat – ensuring the attendance of students for the National Achievement Survey (NAS) exam,
The exam comes at a time when all the schools are officially closed until November 21 for the three-week-long Diwali vacation announced by the state education department. While this applies to all government and grant-in-aid schools, self-financed schools, too, are closed for the Gujarati festivals including Diwali, New Year, Bhai Dooj and Laabh Pancham, among others.
However, in view of the upcoming NAS exams, many students and staff were called to schools Wednesday and Thursday, two days ahead of the exam. “Due to Diwali vacations, with special permission from the state education department, we have organised to open schools for three days, beginning today. This is also aimed to make students get familiar with sitting in the class and writing the exam. We have no problem yet from any side,” said Gujarat Council of Educational Research and Training (GCERT) director TS Joshi. The students were given the practice to write the ‘mock exam’ from NAS 2017 question papers.
GCERT is the nodal agency for conducting NAS in Gujarat across 6,064 schools and 7,003 classes over 2.10 lakh students. These include nearly 2,700 government classes, 1,570 grant-in-aid schools and 2,500 self-financed classes (including classes 3, 5, 8 and 10).
However, the staff from the schools selected for the sampling revealed that all schools have been asked to reach out to parents and convince them to send their wards to schools for the exam. “The issue is not only coronavirus but that most of them are out travelling and not available,” shared one of the staff members in Ahmedabad.
Private schools are also facing similar challenges. “This is not at all an appropriate time to conduct this exam. It could have been done after 10 days also. It is difficult to understand why the chaos while it could have been done in a better manner. Why create a problem for teachers and parents when vacations are on? Parents have complained that they would not be able to reach the city for the exam since they are held up somewhere else. Also, many who say they can come have travelled to Goa and other places and just returned. We have advised such parents not to send their wards to school and instead, stay in quarantine,” Binu Thomas, principal of Anand Niketan School Satellite, a popular self-financed school in Ahmedabad.. The school is closed for Diwali vacations from November 1-15. There are an estimated 150 students from the school selected for NAS.
Following the reopening of Classes 9-11 in July this year, the state government reopened schools for 32 lakh students enrolled in Classes 6-8 in over 30,000 government and self-financed schools across the state on September 2.
The state government is expected to take a decision on the pending reopening of lower primary classes after the Diwali vacations. The decision would also be indicative of the Covid cases in the state. On Wednesday, Gujarat reported 42 cases of coronavirus infection — more than double the figures reported the previous day.
