In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the Punjab Education Department has decided to brush up the reading skills of students in Gurmukhi script.
From the coming academic session, all language textbooks of Punjabi, Hindi and English will have a page on alphabets in Gurmukhi script. Covering nearly 60 lakh students, enrolled from Class 1 to XII in government, government-aided, private and other schools, the aim of the exercise is to improve the reading skills in Gurmukhi script.
The textbooks are being printed by the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB).
In this year’s report of Pratham (Annual Status of Education Report), it was found that nearly 15 per cent of the Class III students, both of government and private schools, could just read alphabets in Gurmukhi script but not words, and 4.6 per cent of the students could not even read Punjabi letters.
The survey on the learning levels of children in rural Punjab revealed that 28 per cent of Class III students could read Class I-level text, while only 34 per cent of them were able to read Class II-level text.