One ‘Mentor Teacher’ for every 25 students; Kerala schools plan new Mentoring system

Thiruvananthapuram: School teachers will not only teach children but will also take on the role of mentors to ensure students achieve the expected learning outcomes at each grade level. The General Education Department has launched the initiative to ensure the learning standards of students from Classes 1 to 7.

In addition to ensuring basic proficiency in numeracy and literacy, teachers have been given guidelines on the learning outcomes students are expected to achieve in each class.

The department is considering appointing one mentor teacher to monitor the progress of 20-25 students. Teachers will be assigned this responsibility regardless of whether they are class teachers or subject teachers.

Head teachers have also been instructed to submit online details of students’ marks and learning levels in the Onam examinations. The information will be compiled under the supervision of KITE, the General Education Department’s technology agency.

Mentors will be appointed based on students’ performance in the Onam examinations. They will periodically record students’ learning outcomes online. Schools will formulate learning support programmes based on the needs of individual students. Education officers will evaluate these activities at regular intervals.

The activities will be coordinated through the integrated dashboard ‘Tharapadham’.

Tharapadham – AI Single Window for Schools

‘Tharapadham’ is a single platform for the various websites used to submit information related to school activities online. It is an AI-assisted integrated dashboard.

Teachers can access portals such as Sampoorna, Sampoorna Plus, Sahitham, Samagra and Samanwaya through this dashboard without having to log in separately to each portal.

KITE CEO K Anvar Sadath said a whiteboard for online communication among teachers has also been set up under the name ‘Samagra Canvas’.