Less play, more lessons this summer

Bhubaneswar, May 8: Though tackling mathematics is not every child’s dream, especially while summer holidays are on, children of 51,000 villages across Orissa would be doing just that from May 15.

An exclusive summer camp, to begin from May 15 and being organised by Pratham (an NGO) in association with Orissa Primary Education Programme, aims to hone simple arithmetic and language skills of children who have problems tackling the two.

“This camp would be a deviation from what we usually consider as summer camps with its music, singing and entertainment. But, even our target group would be different,” explained Dhanada Mishra, the advisor of Pratham.

An annual status report of education in Orissa recently showed that more than 50 per cent of rural children between ages six and 14 years were not able to read passages in Oriya meant for Class II students. Their capacity to handle simple arithmetic was found to be worse. This prompted the idea of an exclusive camp for rural children.

The programme would include a month-long intensive program in villages with volunteers trained under “Learn to Read (L2R)” — a popular educational campaign.

Students between five and 14 years would be inducted, focusing on “weaker” students.

“Though all children are welcome, those who are slower would be receiving extra care,” added Mishra.

The Orissa Primary Education Programme staff have issued orders to district inspectors of schools to co-ordinate the process and the camps would be held in the school buildings.

A 15-day training-cum-pilot camp with 400-odd volunteers was conducted in Parlekhamundi in Gajapati district. The same volunteers later conducted camps in villages, blocks and panchayat.

“We will try to include as many children as possible, Our target would be helping them to achieve minimum proficiency in reading, writing and arithmetic,” added Mishra.

Having identified “reading” as a key competency, the lack of which hinders a child’s retention progress throughout school, Pratham has evolved an “effective accelerated learning method”.

One of their methods involves organising a lessons fair where children are encouraged to participate in activities that enhances their capacity to read and write.