Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio launches the Nagaland Reading Festival, Digital Diary for government teachers and “A Question A Day (AGAD) in Kohima on September 5. Morung Photo
Our Correspondent
Kohima | September 5
Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio today launched Nagaland Reading Festival (Enabling micro improvements to improve Love for Reading), Digital Diary for government teachers and “A Question A Day (AGAD) in collaboration with Educational Initiatives.
It was launched during the state level teachers’ day celebration in Kohima.
Digital Diary for Govt teachers
Teachers need regular monitoring and supervision of performance of their assigned duties. Performing teachers need to be recognized and awarded and the under-performing teachers need to be supported to develop their capabilities. This would help them deliver lessons in a superior manner thereby enhancing learning outcomes for students.
The Teacher's Diary introduced by the Department in all Government Schools across the State in the year 2020 is a comprehensive tool that would assist and motivate teachers to plan their teaching learning activities efficiently and at the same time serve as a record of assessment of their performance.
The ‘Teacher Friendly’ Teacher’s Diary serves as a mirror of their performance.
The physical Teacher’s Diary has now been upgraded into a digital format as the Digital Teacher's Diary and is being integrated into the Teacher’s App. This would enable the Sub Divisional, District and State level Officials to monitor the class room transactions being carried out in Government Schools across the State on a real time basis.
Officials at the recently established Nagaland Education Management and Information System (NEMIS) Control Room at the Directorate of School Education would regularly monitor the implementation and usage of the Digital Teacher’s Diary.
Nagaland Reading Festival
Ever since the National Education Policy prioritized Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, many actors in the education system have implemented programs for basic reading, writing and arithmetic. The NIPUN Bharat initiative has translated this vision into actions for schools and communities. Nagaland, too, has come up with a road map for its journey toward attaining these literacy and numeracy objectives by 2026-27.
The recent launch of the Vidya Amrit initiative by the Ministry of Education, Government of India allows us to create achievable milestones in this journey. Vidya Amrit’s focus is on micro improvements, or small steps that build excellence in schools. Any statewide effort also has to begin by recognizing the potential activities that school leaders, as experts of their own schools, can do to improve learning outcomes for students.
The school education department is starting this Nagaland Reading Festival with Government School Principals and Headmasters, to convert the roadmap into reality.
The Nagaland Reading Festival is a statewide celebration of school leaders’ innovations. Its theme is “Love for Reading”. It is an occasion for Principals and Headmasters to design and implement activities that solve their students’ reading challenges. The goal of the festival is to help students from Grades 1 to 8 read effectively with comprehension.
The festival will be hosted through DIKSHA, which is the national infrastructure for education.
The Department of School Education, Samagra Shiksha Mission and SCERT would jointly anchor this initiative. The department invited the Government school leaders and school teams across Nagaland to participate in the festival and make it a grand success.
We are working with Mantra 4 Change, a Foundation based out of Bangalore on this initiative. It is completely sponsored through CSR funding, stated Thavaseelan K, Principal Director, School Education, Nagaland
‘A Question A Day’
The Department of School Education (DoSE), Nagaland, has been focused on aligning the education ecosystem in the state with Competency-Based-Education (CBE). In line with this, the department is trying to initiate multiple initiatives in the state to reform education.
The DoSE is looking at engaging students actively and is launching one such initiative towards that endeavor.
AQAD is a set of competency-based questions to test the high-order-thinking skills of students and will evaluate students on their understanding of key concepts. Each question has been carefully curated from a list of questions that show student misconceptions. It can be accessed from the DoSE’s website: https://dosent.in/.
AQAD is meant for classes 3 to 9 for various subjects. It is available for English, Maths & Science for Classes 3 & 4. For Classes 5 to 9, its available for English, Maths, Science and Social Studies.
Students can submit their answers, as well as use the option to explain their answers. Every day, students can check the correct answer to the previous day's question and also read the answer explanation which has been chosen as the Best Explanation.
AQAD champ will be declared at the end of every month.
The intent of this initiative is to give students an opportunity to engage with high-quality questions that help them appreciate a deeper understanding of the concepts taught in the classroom.
“It is hoped that AQAD will help students understand academic concepts deeply and comprehensively, in addition to providing them with an opportunity to demonstrate their skills at a pan-India level,” stated Thavaseelan K.
