By Rithu Dravid | NT

Bengaluru: The Department of Public Instruction has taken all measures to ensure a hasslefree school re-opening, scheduled for May 16. In an interview with News Trail, R Vishal , Commissioner for Public Instruction, has said classroom preparations, teachers’ recruitment and teachers’ training have been completed. “We have recruited 27,078 guest teachers. All the textbooks will be printed by the first week of June,” he informed.

When will the next academic year start?
The next academic year for the schools will begin on May 16.

What are the preparations for the new academic year?
All classes will be in offline mode and there will be no online or hybrid modes. All our classrooms are ready. We have recruited 27,078 guest teachers for the new academic year. We will also ensure the midday meal scheme. All the textbooks will be printed by the first week of June. Teachers are being trained in Kalika Chetarike Varsha.

What is Kalika Chetarike Varsha?
It is a learning improvement programme launched by the department. It is a holistic learning model that will help students excel in all subjects. For the lower classes, it focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy. For higher classes, these skills and strate gies involving reading, speaking, writing and interpreting will be collectively brought together for a catch up of three years. This will go on for about five to six months. In the subsequent part of the year, we will focus on 50 per cent of the current academic year’s syllabus.

How will the guidelines help students’ abilities to improve on all aspects that were affected during the two-year-long -pandemic?
We have something called regular formative assessments that happen every year. It is a continuous part of our assessment process.

What are the chances of shutting schools again?
Karnataka is one of the first States to resume physical classes after the pandemic. We see no such circumstances to shut schools again. As far as I have seen, students are already back into study mode. Even during the peak of Omicron, 85 lakh children attended classes. Over the last two years, despite our best efforts to ensure the continuation of education through online and other means, students suffered huge losses. We need to ensure that learning is not disrupted and no child is denied education.

As per the National Education Policy (NEP), the content must be reduced to core essentials. Will you change the syllabus and curriculum to meet NEP guidelines?
We will not change the syllabus. But we will optimise it by classifying the necessary and not so important lessons.