Gunotsav-2024: An evaluation of government schools

 Gunin Borah

(The writer is the HOD of Geography at Biswanath College, Chariali, and he can be reached at borah.gunin@gmail.com.)

Gunotsav is a quality improvement programme where external evaluators are deputed to the schools to conduct external evaluations of students. Gunotsav means ‘the celebrating quality in schools’. It was originally a Gujarat government initiative and was adopted by the government of Assam in 2017. Gunotsav, established in 2001 by the government of Gujarat, is an educational initiative that believes in making a difference in education through personalised learning and ensuring that students. To ensure quality education for students in government schools and to increase awareness of quality in the education community, the government carries out a Gunotsav programme in schools, assessed every year since 2009 in Gujarat state. It is time for the state government to take the necessary measures.

The Gunotsav 2024 in Assam is a major educational event that began on January 3, 2024, and goes until February 9, 2024, unlike the instruction’s end date on February 8. With the goal of improving elementary and secondary education throughout the state, this programme will continue to take place in three phases. With over 88,525 schools and 42,76,881 students from classes I through IX participating, the programme is anticipated to have a significant influence on a large number of schools and pupils. The Gunotsav 2024 exercise was carried out in three phases, with 12 districts included in the first round from January 3 to 6, 13 districts from January 9 to 12, and the remaining 10 districts in the last phase from February 5 to 8, 2024. A total of 18,098 external evaluators were deployed across Assam for this purpose. The Chief Minister, MLAs, the Chief Secretary, and college teachers, among others, will visit the schools as external evaluators. Gunotsav was first organized in Assam in 2017, and already four rounds of the exercise have been conducted since then, covering all districts of Assam.

The mission director of Samagra Shiksha Assam (SSA) is leading this extensive educational assessment programme, which has drawn a lot of attention for its contribution to raising Assamese educational standards. In order to provide a comprehensive approach to improving the quality of education, the programme incorporates community service and extracurricular activities into its assessment criteria, in addition to evaluating academic success.

All the government, provincialized, and tea garden management schools at the elementary and secondary levels will be covered in this Gunotsav programme. All districts of Assam will be covered in three phases. Schools in each district will be distributed over three days for external evaluation.

According to officials of the Assam Sarba Siksha Abhiyan Mission, scholastic evaluation will be for class-I to X standards. Though the level of students from I to X will be assessed, students from I to X will be covered. Hence, students in class I will get question papers for class I, and so on for the rest of the classes. There will be both self-evaluation and external evaluation. The evaluation will last two days for each school. On the first day of evaluation, all schools will conduct the self-evaluation. The external evaluation of the respective school, as per schedule, will be done on the respective date of the external evaluation.

Gunotsav has been implemented to improve the quality of education and to provide guidance to teachers and schools. Gunotsav is also a way to analyse the inputs of the school management committee in school development plans, as it is envisioned that the community will take ownership of schools, which in turn will increase community participation.

There are two distinct evaluations that will be conducted, namely self-evaluation and external evaluation. The evaluation criteria include allocating 90% of marks for academic performance, 5% for participation in co-curricular activities, and 5% for engagement in community service. The assessment encompasses a total of 42,76,881 students from classes I to X. The assessment will not only focus on individual students’ performance but also evaluate schools across various domains. These include scholastic and co-scholastic aspects, infrastructure ability and utilisation, and community participation. The Gunotsav 2024 question paper aims to analyse educational strength, pinpoint learning gaps, and contribute to the improvement of education. Based on the results of the evaluation, teachers and schools make further efforts for improvement.

Gunotsav is a quality enhancement initiative of the state aimed at bringing about improvements in the learning levels of students at the elementary and high school levels. The assessment is done in four core areas: academic achievement of children in grades II–X, co-scholastic activities, availability and utilisation of school infrastructure and other facilities, and community participation.

It is time for the state government to take initiative in the infrastructure and academic parts of the school, based on the evaluation of the external evaluation report.

Gunotsav aims at evaluating schools and students in order to assess their performance and design strategies to bring about quality improvement in levels of learning as well as in the school environment. The exercise will indicate the gaps in the learning levels of the students in classes I to X. The teachers, based on this assessment, will provide appropriate interventions to improve the learning levels of students. A special coaching package will be designed for remedial teaching by the teachers in the school itself. The following are some of the beneficial points of Gunotsav in the government school environment.

 Tracking the academic performance of each of the children across all the subjects throughout the elementary cycle.

 It will indicate the learning gaps of the schoolchild.

 Gunotsav will help in designing and implementing remedial strategies based on the identified learning gaps.

 Enhancing the learning of students through timely, regular feedback and support and bringing about improved learning outcomes.

 It increases the retention rate and reduces the dropout rate of the school child.

 Generation of awareness and greater participation among all the stakeholders.

 It will ensure better school functioning.

 Other than that, the literacy ratio in the state will also improve.

Gunotsav is a school evaluation process borrowed by the Assam government from Gujarat. The entire state government machinery is mobilised to evaluate the quality of school education and to grade the teachers and students of the school. Gunotsav has informed us about the academics and infrastructure of the government schools in our state. Each of the government schools is evaluated based on the assessment. The programme will be successful if the government takes the necessary steps for remedial measures based on the report of the external evaluation. It is one of the ways, on the part of the state government, to take remedial measures in the government schools in Assam.

Since its inception in 2017, Gunotsav has been held four times, covering all districts of Assam. This fifth round of Gunotsav further emphasises the Assam government’s ongoing efforts to improve the education system across the state. Measures have been taken to bridge infrastructural gaps by constructing additional classrooms, toilets, electrification, infrastructure facilities, boundary walls, etc. under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF), thereby providing an enabling environment for learning in schools in Assam.