Amritsar's govt schools go extra mile to engage students in activities during vacation

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 24

Going the extra mile to engage children during the summer break, all government schools in the district have organised summer workshops and activities to help in holistic development of their students. Introducing the concept of summer camp in online mode in 2020 during the lockdown, a few government schools had voluntarily organised summer activities last year as well.

But this year, the Education Department made it mandatory for all government schools to host summer activities or camps for its students. The move had now effectively introduced the use of alternate learning methods like storytelling, theatre and drama classes, art workshops, even workshops on maths concepts and artificial intelligence.

The only government school in the district for children with disabilities, Pehal Resource Centre in Karampura too held a summer pool activity for its students. “The idea was to bring in an element of fun while making them learn motor abilities. We have also been organising art and craft and yoga workshops for our special students to engage and give them a chance to develop their talent,” said Dharminder Gill, co-ordinator, of Pehal resource centre at Karampura.

Do-it-yourself workshops of art and craft and literary activities through special teachers have received a good response from parents as well as students.

Deepika Dean, head mistress, Government High School, Abdal, was the first in the state to introduce the concept of summer camp in government school. Dean says that she did not want the concept of summer camps only being associated with private schools.

“In 2020, the idea was introduced as an experiment via online mode to engage the students who were at home due to the pandemic. This year onwards, the summer activity calendar for government schools is as busy as any other private school in the state. The tremendous participation from students has only increased our determination to keep it going.” Her school has held workshops on clay modelling, mehendi competitions, art and craft activities, cooking techniques where students learnt to cook without flames and sports camps. “We have a lot many national-level players in hockey and volleyball in the junior category. We have been organising summer sports activities to encourage more students to take up sports,” she said. She said that the process of upgrading the learning scope and infrastructure in government schools has enabled the introduction of these alternate methods of teaching. “Since we have students, who come from different backgrounds, mostly from lower income families, these children otherwise do not get access to experience learning through alternative, more engaging, unconventional methods. It helps in increased concentration, skill development, exploring a child’s creative drive, building confidence and otherwise personality development. We are just making learning and summers more interesting for them,” she said.

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