KDA urges govt. to continue Nali-Kali programme

The Kannada Development Authority (KDA) has appealed the State government to continue the ‘Nali-Kali’, a multi class teaching programme with necessary modifications, stating that it helps unleash the creativity hidden in children.

The KDA, which submitted a report to Minister School Education and Literacy Madhu Bangarappa on Tuesday on the implementation of the programme, alleged that it failed due to poor implementation .

“Even after 30 years of implementation of the Nali-Kali programme, teachers have not been able to properly adopt this. As a result, teachers have expressed their opposition to the Nali-Kali and parents are also not fond of this. The Nali-Kali can be successful only if teachers take responsibility for identifying the learning style of the child. Teachers should provide them with appropriate tools and techniques to enhance the learning experience of children. Unfortunately, no such efforts have been made anywhere,” reads the report.

Key findings

“The teachers have failed to creatively utilise one period of 80 minutes of the Nali-Kali project. When the trained teachers retired, the guest teachers appointed in their place did not get the expected results as they did not receive proper training. The age, learning level and learning ability of children from class one to three are not the same. In such a situation, the teachers have failed in terms of group formation and management to make multi-class teaching meaningful. This has severely hampered language learning,” it stated.

“In classes with a large number of students, the teachers are not able to pay equal attention to all the children. The learning materials (stickers, picture lists, charts, etc.) required to conduct classes meaningfully have not been adequately supplied to many schools. Children who studied under the Nali-Kali up to Class 3 are finding it difficult to adapt to a different system in the class 4,” it stated.

Speaking to The Hindu, KDA chairman Purushothama Bilimale said, “There were allegations that due to the Nali-Kali project and the Kannada medium, parents are hesitant to admit their children to government schools and have turned to private schools. In this context, it was decided to conduct a study on the programme. Information was obtained from parents, teachers, children, and other stakeholders across the state, and a report was submitted to the School Education Minister”.

However, the State government has decided to phase out the Nali-Kali programme in primary education and convert the multi class teaching into single grade teaching.