A Budget for Quality Education
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Sridhar Rajagopalan
1y ago
  The Union Budget represents signalling about priorities as much as it actually allocates money for different activities. Indian annual expenditure on education exceeds 1 lakh crore rupees if we consider public and private spends. Hence, the question is whether there are relatively smaller spends that can make these large spends much more effective. Six ideas, which focus on improving the quality of education, are listed below: Budgetary support should be provided to the National and State Assessment Surveys to conduct regular assessments at national and state levels every 3 years in c ..read more
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Dialect vs standard language acquisition and ed-tech solution
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Pratik Pande and Tanvi Parwal
1y ago
Today is Anil’s first day at school. Most of his day is spent in trying to understand what the teacher is saying. He fails to understand some parts of the language spoken at school. This is not how they speak at home, although it is quite similar. Some of the words used by the teacher are different. He is hearing them for the first time. For instance, while the teacher is singing the poem of ‘Sasa’ (Rabbit), the picture reminds him of ‘Hoho’ [1]. Even his textbooks use language that is unknown to him.  Consequently, for the most part of the day, he sits quietly and feels alienated. This b ..read more
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How to Create a High-Quality CUET
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Sridhar Rajagopalan
1y ago
The article was originally published in Hindustan Times on 3rd October: Read the original article here The idea of a Common University Entrance Test (CUET) is inherently a good one. Since admissions to colleges test for similar subject proficiency, there is no need for multiple tests when one good test — conducted well — can bring about standardisation and fairness. However, the key phrases here are “good test” and “conducted well”. Much has been discussed about the issues in conducting the test, including technical snags, last-minute changes and delays, but these are teething issues ..read more
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Using Student Skipped Responses to Detect if a Test Paper is too Long
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Sridhar Rajagopalan
1y ago
ASSET is a skill-based test that measures students’ conceptual understanding and benchmarks the performance of schools nationally with actionable insights and reports. Students get feedback on their areas of weakness, and teachers on concepts their students are not understanding. ASSET is offered in English, Mathematics and Science (for classes 3-10), Social Studies (for classes 5-9) and Hindi (for classes 4-8). The duration of each ASSET test is between 45 and 70 minutes. ASSET is offered in online and pen-and-paper modes, predominantly in India and the UAE. While the test is taken entirely o ..read more
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Young Learner’s Performance in Word Recognition
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Tanvi Parwal
1y ago
Word reading or decoding is an important skill. Needless to say, reading comprises a complex assimilation of skills. It may look effortless when we see a proficient reader read, but reading proficiency requires systematic instructions. As per the Simple View of Reading, which is a scientific method, reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension skills (understanding). For this, the formula presented by Gough and Tunmer in 1986 is (validated by Hoover and Gough in 1990): Decoding (D) x Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (R ..read more
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Can Kids Learn To Code Without Computers?
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Shivam Bohra
1y ago
“What is coding?” I asked the girls of Gurukulam Tribal Welfare School in Hyderabad. “Umm..something to do with computers?” a doubtful voice muttered from the corner. “It’s like a language” stated another. “Yes, it’s like a language that helps us talk to computers” they all agreed. “Yup, true” I replied, “it has something to do with languages, and something to do with computers. Today, we’ll try to do some coding”, and we distributed a bunch of sheets with arrows and smiley faces made on them. The girls looked at the sheets all puzzled. “But sir… where are the computers?!” Is a computer really ..read more
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Bringing Process Skills to Science Classrooms
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Sudeshna Roy
1y ago
There is science all around us. Yet, understanding the whys and hows of various scientific processes (like why certain things sink while others float) is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks for a student to undertake (and therefore, for a teacher to facilitate!). Data (shared later in this discussion and as experienced by teachers) suggests that students often struggle to relate to abstract science concepts as most of this is not natural visible to them (eg: cells and their organelles, concepts of atoms and molecules, forces and energy) While the NEP 2020 talks of experiential learning and ..read more
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The RESET – A true story of ASSET’s influence on a teacher
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Chaitanya Kolluri
1y ago
By the year 2017, I had established myself as a full-time mathematics faculty in one of Hyderabad’s most prestigious schools. One day, the school announced the launch of a diagnostic test called ASSET, which was to be conducted for students on a voluntary basis. Since the CBSE’s CCE system was still in effect with quite a few formative and summative assessments already in place, my initial reaction to another test was one of apprehension. I wasn’t sure what the test was going to assess as it was mid-year, and when I heard that the test would be based on the previous academic year’s learning, I ..read more
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TECHNOLOGY BASED INTERACTIVE LEARNING
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Praveena K and Maulik Shah
1y ago
Technology in education has a great potential to improve the learning outcomes of students. However, the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study[1] show no appreciable improvement in student achievement in the countries that had invested heavily in digital technology for education. According to PISA findings, students (15-year olds) who use computers moderately at school tend to have somewhat better learning outcomes than students who use computers rarely. But students who use computers very frequently at school perform worse in most learning outcomes, even a ..read more
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Using Research to Drive Instructional Design
Educational Initiatives Blog
by Meghna Kumar
1y ago
There is an urgent need for literacy instruction and activities to enable efficient learning, especially in young, disadvantaged learners. Why young learners? Research in literacy points to early learning as a pivotal phase in a learner’s journey. Gaps that build up due to various reasons during the early years are not easily bridged/mitigated as the learner progresses to higher classes.[1] How should instruction be designed to ensure effective learning? At times, classroom instruction and content (for classroom aides or technological interventions) are designed using an unwarranted dependence ..read more
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