After havoc last year, MCD & DoE teachers to now coordinate to track transfer pupils

New Delhi: After having conducted the humongous exercise of tracing "missing" students of Delhi government schools last year so that they can be connected to online education, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's office on Tuesday said that they had, for this year, decided to pair teachers of MCD schools and Delhi government schools so that information related to students transferring from feeder schools can be correctly updated.

To avoid the confusion seen among teachers and students last year when schools shifted online, the Delhi government and the civic bodies have agreed to completely sync their student databases so that the contact information of students can be regularly updated and correctly standardised.

Last year, at the beginning of the session only about 30-35 per cent of students' phone numbers were correct, the Delhi government said, adding that this was the reason Delhi government school teachers had to take drastic measures to trace these students who were supposed to start their new academic session.

But despite these "special efforts", eventually, "only 76 per cent of the children enrolled in Class 6 of Delhi government schools could be reached", the Dy CM's office said.

This year, teachers of MCD's Class 5 students transitioning to Class 6 in Delhi government schools will now contact their students after they have transferred to update contact information if required. Further, the MCD teachers have also been asked to pass on any information on the special circumstances of certain students to their counterparts in the corresponding Delhi government school.

In addition to this, the Delhi government has also announced that it will host a joint Parent-Teacher Meeting in July where teachers of MCD schools and Delhi government schools will together interact with parents.

"We need correct contact details of students joining Delhi Government Schools from Municipal schools so that their class 6 teachers can reach out to them quickly," Sisodia said, adding that both students and teachers have had to deal with a lot of challenges and this is precisely why efforts must be made to make the transition as smooth as possible.

"We should ensure that the students transitioning from MCD to DoE schools should get the same emotional and learning support from their teachers as students in other classes of DoE schools... Joint efforts between MCD school teachers and DoE school teachers will help tremendously in getting the correct contact details of such students and strengthening the bond between teachers and their students," he added.

Notably, Dy CM Sisodia, who is also the city's Education Minister, said that in the future, a combined strategy will be employed under "Mission Buniyad" for all students of Classes 3 to 6 in DoE and MCD schools to strengthen foundational learning skills.