Countering the COVID impact: Renowned educationist Dr. Sunita Gandhi unveils 'pedagogy' to bridge kids’ learning loss of two COVID years
Countering the COVID impact: Renowned educationist Dr. Sunita Gandhi unveils 'pedagogy' to bridge kids’ learning loss of two COVID years
The world can now become literate in months, not years, through Global Dream Toolkits: Dr Sunita Gandhi
New Delhi, March 24, 2022:
Dr Sunita Gandhi, a well-known educationist and innovator , has developed a Global Dream Toolkit to help the children learn faster and to cover their learning loss of two pandemic years. The toolkit incorporates the Accelerating Learning for All (ALfA) pedagogy.
A demonstration of the ALfA system was done by a group of kids who travelled from Lucknow at a press meet held at the Press Club of India here. The kids read out the day’s newspapers fluently. They also demonstrated their one grade up mathematical skills. These skills were learned by the children in just 30 hours over three months time. In this system, the kids are asked to read words and sentences directly instead of wasting their time on learning letters or numbers. They decode the letters by themselves.
Sunita Gandhi, who is a Ph.D. in Physics from Cambridge University, UK; and is a former Economist , The World Bank, USA said, “The classic problem in education has been that of speed. Our system counters the notion that it takes 3 years to make a child capable of reading words and learning basic numeracy. When children learn rapidly, it expands capacities, and creates new possibilities. The world can now become literate in months, not years. Education is a global emergency and urgent action is required.”
She demanded policy-makers to ensure foundational literacy and numeracy(FLN) for all children, and do it within this year using disruptive methods to learn quickly. Each study module of ALfA follows the do it yourself method, where children learn in pairs and teachers do not teach, but prompt the children to their tasks.
Universal literacy and numeracy is a sustainable development goal. According to UNICEF, education loss is nearly unsurmountable. In low and middle income countries, learning losses due to school closures have left up to 70% of 10-year-olds unable to read or understand simple text, up from 53% pre-pandemic. In the US, learning loss has been observed in many states. In Texas for example, two-thirds of children in grade 3 tested below their grade level in math in 2021, compared to half of children in 2019.
