Government schools in Amritsar go the extra mile to engage students in holiday activities: The Tribune India

Tribune press service

Amritsar, June 24

Going the extra mile to engage children during the summer break, all public schools in the district held workshops and summer activities to aid in the holistic development of their students. Introducing the concept of summer camp in online mode in 2020 during the lockdown, a few public schools had also voluntarily organized summer activities last year.

But this year, the Ministry of Education has made it mandatory for all public schools to organize activities or summer camps for its students. The move had now effectively introduced the use of alternative learning methods like storytelling, acting and drama classes, art workshops, even workshops on mathematical concepts and artificial intelligence.

The district’s only public school for children with disabilities, Karampura’s Pehal Resource Center also held a summer pool activity for its students. “The idea was to bring in an element of fun while teaching them motor skills. We also held arts, crafts and yoga workshops for our special students to engage them and give them a chance to develop their talent,” said Dharminder Gill, Pehal Resource Center Coordinator in Karampura.

Do-it-yourself workshops for arts and crafts and literary activities through specialist teachers were well received by parents and students.

Deepika Dean, principal of Abdal Government Secondary School, was the first in the state to introduce the concept of summer camp to a government school. Dean says she didn’t want the concept of summer camps to be associated only with private schools.

“In 2020, the idea was introduced as an experiment through the online mode to engage students who were at home due to the pandemic. Starting this year, the public school summer schedule is as packed as any other private school in the state. The tremendous participation of the students only increased our determination to continue. Her school held clay modeling workshops, mehendi competitions, arts and crafts activities, cooking techniques where students learned to cook without flames, and sports camps. “We have a lot of national level players in hockey and volleyball in the junior category. We organize summer sports activities to encourage more students to play sports,” she said. She said the process of upgrading the learning scope and infrastructure in public schools has enabled the introduction of these alternative teaching methods. “Given that we have students, who come from different backgrounds, mostly from low-income families, these children otherwise do not have access to the learning experience through alternative, more engaging and unconventional methods. . It helps to increase concentration, skill development, explore child’s creative drive, build confidence and personality development. We just make learning and summers more interesting for them,” she said.