KOLKATA: The primary schools under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation from now on will have parents and teachers' meeting thrice a year in similar fashion as the private schools in the city to apprise the guardians of the progress of studies of their respective wards.
The move assumes significance with the Education department of the KMC witnessing lack of concentration in studies among the students post opening of schools after COVID-19, during which schools have remained closed for almost two years.
The initiative has recently been rolled out with Member-Mayor-in-Council (Education) Sandipan Saha visiting a KMC school at Kabitirtha Sarani in Kidderpore and interacting with the guardians in presence of teachers of the school.
There are 263 schools under KMC out of which over 70 are English medium. The total number of students in the KMC schools was over 17000 but post COVID-19 the number has dropped to around 15500. Saha said that such meetings will be held in the month of July, September and December and results of the examination will be handed over by calling the guardians to the schools. The main aim behind such an initiative is to inform the parents of the educational gaps of their respective wards and advising them for addressing them.
"Our inspectors will be present during the meeting. They will prepare minutes of the meeting, so that in future these can be analysed and interventions can be made for further improvement in the education system," he added.
KMC had roped in an organisation for a survey where it was found that guardians hailing from the lower middle class families prefer to send their wards in Montessori schools where English is taught rather than sending them to civic body schools. "There has been an effort to convert our schools to English medium to woo students and our target is to have 100 such schools by this calendar year,"a senior official of KMC's Education department said.