the KOOLSKOOL blog
21Oct/101

Self evaluation

The main tenet of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) being introduced in our school education system is to help holistic and overall growth of children. Whether they blooming as fully rounded citizens or not, we will know in some years. But, meanwhile the testing/ evaluation system will kick off soon. Teachers will evaluate students on whether they communications are getting steady, whether their social skills are improving and so on. The government is starting up a pilot for another (potentially far reaching) innovation. The pilot is for self evaluation of class V students government schools.

The evaluations (reminds us of annual self evaluations from our past corporate lives) will be filled in by the students themselves. If the student answers all questions around skill building and comprehension of a chapter with a yes, then progress is considered to have happened. If the student answers any of the questions with a no, then she / he gets some remedial teaching to cover the gap. If the self evaluation process pilot succeeds, then it will be rolled out to other classes as well.

Every year, folk from the department of education will visit the school to evaluate progress and make observations. In a way, not that different from school inspectors we assume.

3Oct/102

Holistic growth through CCE

The Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) as being introduced by CBSE is a much needed move towards holistic growth of children. What is learnt in academic institutions should ideally provide the platform for an individual to get ready for education that is called life. We believe that over the last many years education in academic institutions have been more and more focused on acquiring skills to either crack entrance tests (in case of schools), or gain skills to be more employable (in cases of colleges). In this milieu, advent of CCE is refreshing.

But, take that with a pinch of salt. Great idea, but difficult to implement. The CCE is causing for new books to be written and published. Publishers we met in Delhi last week (for KOOLSKOOL) seemed to be happy to print new books, and authors were happy to write more. However, now combine this with the incoming RTE which will bring in a bunch more students into the fold, and the fact that teachers will be spending more time running the evaluation process through the year. Something has got to give. Either the evaluation will become paper compliance type, or just become inordinately subjective which might not be good for students.

   
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