Date:28/10/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/10/28/stories/2007102855090800.htm

National

“Read Rajasthan” project soon

Special Correspondent

Initiative will aim at improving quality of primary education

JAIPUR: The Rajasthan Government and Pratham Rajasthan, an NGO in the education sector, have entered into an agreement to work together to improve the quality of education among primary and upper primary school children in 14 districts of the State.

State Principal Secretary (School and Sanskrit Education) Sudhir Bhargava and Pratham Rajasthan chairman M.L. Mehta signed the MoU for the programme which will cover 17 lakh children in 39,000 schools. The programme will begin in November and last up to May 2008. “Now the focus is on quality education as we have achieved 98 per cent enrolment in the State,” said Shubhra Singh, State Projects Commissioner.

The initiative “Read Rajasthan” will have simple interventions, which include a “reading period” with attractively designed story cards and teaching/learning material aimed at improving fluency in Hindi and competencies in arithmetic in all government schools.

The districts chosen are: Jhalawar, Bikaner, Jalore, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Karauli, Banswara, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Ajmer, Dausa, Rajsamand and Pali.

“Pratham Rajasthan has tested the teaching/learning material in 4,000 schools of four districts. The results, noticed in a short span of four months, are very encouraging,” said Mr. Mehta, a former Chief Secretary of the State. Government primary school teachers of all these schools will be oriented towards use of material with a focus on improving three basic skills through routine monthly meetings at the cluster level.