Chitradurga tops State in Ganitha Ganaka initiative

Chitradurga district has emerged as the top-performing district in the implementation of Ganitha Ganaka, an evidence-backed initiative of the State government aimed at improving foundational numeracy among primary school children.

Ganitha Ganaka is a remote tutoring programme in which government school teachers conduct weekly one-to-one phone-based tutoring sessions for students of Grades 3, 4 and 5 focusing on foundational numeracy.

Under the initiative, parents are actively involved in the learning process, as tutoring sessions are conducted over phone calls in the presence of caregivers

In Chitradurga district, 2,400 plus trained teachers from 1,586 schools across 151 clusters actively participated in Cycle 1 of the programme and engaged approximately 9,000 students.

Under the initiative, each student received four structured tutoring calls, in addition to sensitisation and assessment calls, during a six-week cycle.

Having launched the first cycle ahead of other districts, now Chitradurga is also the only district in the State to have started the second cycle in the current academic year, according to the authorities.

The initiative has thrown several surprises, according to teachers.

A teacher found that a usually quiet child in the classroom opened up during the tutoring calls and responded very positively to the phone-based support.

In some cases, teachers have progressed to teaching three-digit operations once students demonstrated mastery over two-digit operations, even though this is not mandated by the programme, officials said.

While in one case, Headmaster Ranganath H. from GLPS Chigatanahalli School in Challakere block coordinated and arranged a mobile phone for a student who had no means of communication, while in another case, parents voluntarily purchased additional phones for the sake of tutoring sessions.

According to officials, the initiative has led to notable increase in parental investment and support in their children’s learning and parents, especially mothers, are taking a keen interest by being present during tutoring calls. Teachers are also sparing time beyond school hours to support and improve their children’s learning.

“All parents have appreciated the dedication of teachers and educational institutions in Chitradurga for their collective efforts in strengthening foundational learning outcomes through Ganitha Ganaka,” Chief Executive Officer of Chitradurga Zilla Panchayat S. Akash has said.

Learning gain

An analysis of the data has revealed significant learning gain among children. As per the data, the proportion of students who could solve two-digit division problems has increased to 22% from 2%, reflecting a net gain of 20%. On an average, students mastered 2.3 new mathematical operations over the six-week tutoring cycle.

The administration involved the Government College of Teacher Education (CTE) in programme implementation. As many as 86 B.Ed students supported teachers in large schools and provided tutoring to 300 plus students, leading to nearly 45% of these students reaching division-level understanding.

This academic year, B.Ed. students are expected to support 300 students additionally.