Teachers’ cluster meet likely to be held this Saturday

The second teachers’ cluster meeting of the year will likely be held this Saturday.

A hybrid mode meeting of the Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) monitoring committee, presided over by Minister for General Education V. Sivankutty, remained divided over the dates for the meeting.

The Minister who wanted at least three cluster meetings to be held this year said issues related to assessment should be addressed before the second-term examinations.

Teachers’ organisations affiliated to the Left such as the Kerala School Teachers’ Association and the All Kerala School Teachers’ Union were in favour of conducting the cluster meeting on Saturday. However, the Kerala Pradesh School Teachers’ Association (KPSTA) opposed the proposal since Saturday would be the sixth working day in the week. It demanded that the cluster be moved to a Saturday that is not the sixth consecutive working day of a week.

It was then proposed that a training be held on a later date for those unable to attend the cluster on Saturday.

The KPSTA also warned of a boycott if the cluster was not postponed to a later date.

It was decided to familiarise teachers further with the new question paper pattern introduced for the term examinations. After competency-based questions were introduced during the first-term examinations as part of the quality education programme, teachers’ had demanded that they be made more familiar with the new question paper pattern, how to prepare such question papers, and how to equip students to answer these. Besides the question paper pattern, the cluster would also make teachers familiar with part II of the new textbooks and the teachers’ handbook.