'Samaydaan' campaign by teachers to help students

Gandhinagar: The Gujarat government announced on Sunday that over 22 lakh teachers of government, grant-in-aid, private primary and secondary schools will provide an extra one hundred hours each to the children under the 'Samaydaan' campaign to make up for the learning loss suffered due to the pandemic.

The 'Samaydaan' campaign will be held from December to April 15 next year, where more than two lakh teachers of the State's 43,500 primary schools and around 12,500 secondary schools will donate 100 hours each in addition to school hours, to compensate for the education loss due to Covid-19.

Special emphasis will be laid on mathematics and writing for classes 1 to 5, while for classes 6 to 8, the focus will be on 'tough points'. Special education work will be carried out for classes 9 to 12 as per the subject load.

The schools will organise these additional teaching hours before or after school hours as per their requirement, including on Sundays and public holidays.

Students appearing for class 10 and 12 board examinations will be given special guidance after completing their remaining curriculum.

While making an appeal and trying to woo retired teachers, local training graduates, and other voluntary organisations to join the campaign, the Vijay Rupani-led government is expecting more than two crore man hours to be voluntarily spent by teachers to make this campaign successful.

In a release on Sunday, Gujarat education minister Jitu Vaghani said: "The State government has taken an important decision to organise a special 100-hour Samaydaan campaign in schools across the state in the interest of the students in order to alleviate the impact on children's learning levels during the Covid period. The decision is taken in the wider interest of students in order to reduce the gap in learning brought about by the pandemic when the schools were closed for a long time."