‘Aarambh’ of student learning ability assessment project

The Department of Education, Punjab, has launched the ‘Aarambh’ campaign to identify the learning ability of students in pre-primary classes in government schools of the state and involve parents in their education. After running the pilot project in Ludhiana for a few months, the campaign has now been launched in Amritsar with Deputy Commissioner Sakshi Sawhney and State Education Committee member Avinash Kuddu inaugurating the campaign online.

In his address, District Education Officer (Elementary) Kanwaljit Singh stated that the project will open a new era for early childhood education. The project focuses on learning through games and activity-based practical application for the students of pre-primary classes in government schools of the state. It will also engage active participation of parents for comprehensive development of children, in the 3-6 age-group. The mission, ‘Aarambh’, has been launched for the overall development of students and involvement of parents in shaping the future of children which will be of great benefit to pre-primary students, he shared.

The project was designed with different stakeholders, including the Government of Punjab in collaboration with the Punjab Development Commission and the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) to synchronise early childhood learning with the state curriculum, focused on developing cognitive and applied skills through activity-based education. The project, conceptualised by social organisation Rocket Learning, was first launched in Ludhiana as an experiment and is now being proposed for expansion throughout the state, including Amritsar. The curriculum through this project includes more than 150 play-based activities that focus on cognitive, pre-literacy, pre-numeracy, social-emotional and motor skills development, which will be taught in all pre-schools and anganwadis of the district.