HYDERABAD: A year back she could hardly read a sentence fluently from her class book but now as she renders a Sanskrit sloka effortlessly with proper diction she grabs all the attention. For S. Aiswarya, a fourth class student of Nandaluru Primary School in Kadapa district, the unbelievable change was a dream turned into reality thanks to the Children's Language Improvement Programme (CLIP) introduced under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA).

She is not alone in this successful mission and a few thousands of students can compete with her across the State. N. Rajesh and K. Bhanakka of Vemunapalli village in Adilabad district and Rajasekhar and Rajesh of Chennur village - all in primary schools showcased how some common forgotten practices can change the attitude and infuse confidence in the lives at a presentation to the media here.

Significant change

The change in Rajesh and Bhanakka is quite laudable since they come from poor tribal families and first generation learners. Their parents did not even see a newspaper while these children can read newspapers quite fluently. "It was no magic. The improvement is due to some innovative methods adopted by the teachers to make them clearly understand what they read," said N. Upender Reddy, State Academic Monitoring Officer, SSA.

Under CLIP the stress is on reading the words than just writing. Three periods are allotted exclusively for languages and at the end of the day 30 minutes are earmarked for reading books on stories, rhymes and songs through which they can identify their culture and themselves. "To improve their academic knowledge it is imperative that they understand what they study first," said K. Ananda Kishore, Additional State Project Director, SSA explaining the concept. A public demonstration was also held in schools recently .

Grading of schools

The SSA initiated grading of schools based on CLIP programme and it was heartening to note that several schools bettered their performance moving up the ladder to "A" grade from "B" grade and to "B" grade from "C" grade. The Special Project Director, SSA, Chandramouli said they were planning to conduct a competition between Corporate school students and those benefited from the CLIP programme.

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