Delhi’s govt schools go the extra mile to make sure no student is left behind

With the first phase of online classes set to commence in over 1,030 Delhi government schools from Monday, principals and teachers have come up with innovative methods to track students and introduce them to another year of virtual learning.

In a circular issued on Friday, the Directorate of Education asked teachers and principals to use the first phase, between June 28 and July 3, to establish an initial the pupil-teacher connect through the phone and prepare a list of students who don’t have either smartphones or feature phones.

Several principals of public schools in areas such as Lajpat Nagar, Mayur Vihar, Rohini, Okhla, Najafgarh, Jafrabad, and Tilak Nagar said they will focus on providing emotional support to students and mentally prepare them before starting online classes.

Awadhesh Kumar Jha, principal of Sarvodaya Co-ed Vidyalaya in Rohini, said the school will deploy teams of teachers to visit nearby localities with microphones. “Our teachers will go to busy intersections and make announcements on microphones about the new academic session. Even if the students are not present, relatives or neighbours of those families will inform them, and the students will return to their classes. When we did this activity last year, we were able to identify the localities where dropouts are more common and where intervention might be of more help,” he said.

Most principals HT spoke to said that the focus will be on tracking Class 6 students. Every year, around 170,000 students move from municipal schools, which offer education only up to Class 5, to government schools in Class 6. Due to the pandemic, migration, and poor record-keeping, only 76% of such students could be traced last year.

Schools such as Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Molarband said they are mindful of lessons drawn from last year’s admissions. “This time, we made it a point to note down contact numbers and updated addresses of all children, along with the bank account numbers linked to their subsidies. Before the pandemic, doing this was difficult as not all families had phones or remembered the number. But this time, we insisted on getting one contact number at least,” said principal Sujata Tamta.

Not just tracking students, some schools are also taking measure to instil a connection between students, their peers and the institutes.

Mudassir Jahan, head of Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya in Noor Nagar, Okhla, said they are planning to record a video of the school to share with students on WhatsApp groups. “Along with Class 6 students who have been admitted this year, those who have been promoted to Class 7 also haven’t even visited their schools once. Their learning has been on WhatsApp due to the pandemic since last year. So, we plan to record a video of the school and its teachers along with photographs of their classmates so that they feel some sort of connection,” she said.

Jahan also said that they plan to use the local community to track missing students. “Though we don’t expect many students to be missing, we will use local mosques, school management committee (SMC) members, and engage community leaders as shiksha mitras to contact families,” she said.

Along with finding missing children and providing emotional support to students, schools are also taking efforts to provide tools of digital learning to those in need. Bijesh Kumar Sharma, principal of Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya in Lajpat Nagar, said they have started an initiative with students of the school and their parents to help such families. “We provide the raw material for masks and toys to some families and sell the finished product in the market. The revenue generated is used to provide smartphones and other such requirements for needy students,” he said.

According to school officials, they have raised ₹1.90 lakh from the initiative which saw participation from around 15 members from eight families, including Afghan refugees.

Delhi government has also facilitated a mental health and well-being workshop with professional counsellors to train its mentor teachers, who will later conduct similar workshops with other teachers in schools under them.