Palakkad: Quality of education suffers with the loss of school time. Though the Kerala Government has set 220 working days or instructional days as a goal, the higher secondary Plus-One or Class-12 students in the State would have got less than 90 such days by the end of the current academic year! In the case of Plus-Two students, the instructional days is less than 130 days. Hereon, it will be a race against time to finish the lessons.
The Plus-One classes commenced in the state on August 25. But after transfer allotment and Onam holidays, the classes properly began from September 12 onwards.
So far four public examination, including those for improvement, and their evaluations were conducted. On the days the evaluation camps were held, students missed out on the classes partially.
The teaching staff were also given duty as escorting teachers for equivalency exams, sub-district and district art-sports-science fests, further affecting the instructional days.
As the Plus-Two practical exams will start on February 1, teachers have to complete the syllabus before January 25. As there are half-yearly exams and Christmas holidays this month, the students will get only very few classes.
The teachers also say that the Plus-One improvement exam, which is held halfway when students are in the Plus-Two, also disrupts the plus-two classes. Apart from these, there are public holidays and local holidays.
As the students attended online classes in the previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers point out that the academic performance of several students are below par and many children have not been able to understand even the basic concepts.
In order to reduce the burden on students, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had omitted certain portions at the beginning of this year itself. But in Kerala, the circular excluding certain potions was issued only last month. Several of the lessons from the initial portions that were omitted had already been taught in class.
Before the public examination this coming summer, the Plus-One students would have got only six months. The higher-secondary exams will begin on March 10 as well.
This is the predicament of the students who would be writing national entrance examinations but are not getting even half the number of mandated classes during the higher-secondary studies.