The promotion of students studying in classes PP-VIII will be based on records maintained by teachers and not promoted automatically. This was shared by Education Minister Jai Bir Rai during the Question and Answer session at the National Assembly today. Lyonpo said the results will be declared on 18th of this month.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, campus learning for classes PP to VIII was cancelled. And hence the learning for the 2020 academic year has been mainly through the adapted curriculum, which was delivered through BBS, Google classroom, social media, radio and self-instructional materials.
Members of Parliament (MP) from Khamdang Ramjar and Nanong Shumar raised the concerns of parents of the students of classes PP-VIII who are going to be promoted to the next level without sitting for exams this academic session.
“Because of the pandemic, there are students who did not even go to school for once. For instance, there are chances those studying in PP this year might not even recognise the alphabets. In my opinion, both teachers and students will have challenges next year especially with students in class PP being promoted to class I without having attended a single class. So based on this, for students in class PP to VIII when they join schools, how prepared is the ministry to solve these issues and challenges in the coming year?” asked Kuenga Loday, the Khamdang Ramjar MP.
“This year, all students from classes PP-VIII are supposed to be directly promoted to the next level without having to sit for exams as per the news. Students and parents, especially in the rural areas, are worried about how will they be promoted to the next level,” added Lungten Namgyel, the Nanong Shumar MP.
Education Minister Jai Bir Rai said that no children in classes PP-VIII have been left out from engaging in the Education in Emergency lessons after the closure of schools.
Like continuous assessment, the teachers continuously assigned and rated the students. But on social media, it was reflected as automatically promoted. I think that’s wrong. Students in classes PP-VIII will be promoted based on short assignments, objective questions, video lesson questions and radio lesson questions among others. It’s clear in our circular. Their ability and capability this time will be rated as per the various competency levels developed by the ministry. So they won’t be promoted to the next level without having learnt anything,” Lyonpo said.
The Minister added that if some parents choose to retain their child and repeat next year, the option is being provided. And to compensate for the learning loss and gaps, teachers have been instructed to provide remedial classes and bridging lessons next year.
Sonam Pem/Kinley Dem/Kelzang Choden
