Jammu School Education's Counselling Cell trains 500 on conducting 'TAMANNA'

Jammu, Feb 24: The Counselling Cell of Directorate of School Education, Jammu in a first-of-its-kind initiative of holding Aptitude testing of students from the Government Schools has trained around 500 faculty Counselors and Psychological task force members on conducting ‘Tamanna’ (Try and Measure Aptitude and Natural Abilities).
As per official communiqué, the Counselling Cell also conducted two days online Orientation-cum Training programme of Faculty counsellors of Jammu Division from winter zone in which 500 faculty counsellors and Psychological task force members were trained for conducting the test on the students.
More such rigorous trainings will be conducted through online/offline mode before actually conducting the test which will be conducted in offline mode.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training ( NCERT), New Delhi NCERT under the aegis of Ministry of Education, Government of India along with Central Board of School Education (CBSE) have evolved an aptitude test for senior school students named as Tamanna (Try and Measure Aptitude and Natural Abilities) to enable the stakeholders to know the aptitude of students of 9th and 10th class.
The Test contains items on the seven dimensions measured in the aptitude test i.e., Language Aptitude ( LA), Abstract Reasoning ( AR) , Verbal Reasoning ( VR), Mechanical Reasoning ( MR), Numerical Reasoning ( NA), Spatial Aptitude ( SA), and Perceptual Aptitude ( PA) along with technical manual, thereby, helping the students of 9th and 10th class to make a better choice of subjects.
Director School Education Jammu, Anuradha Gupta in her inaugural address, shared that the Directorate of School Education, Jammu has taken the lead by being the first one to help students to take the benefit of this Test in making appropriate academic choices and career-related decisions.
'Tamanna' Aptitude test is a facility in the hands of teachers and the right and appropriate use of it will provide information which gives ample time to the students to indulge in self-exploration and self-preparation in academics as well as in exploring the world of work so that they are able to make well-informed career/vocational choices, said the Director.
''Every teacher should know it and its importance. It's a lengthy process and journey,'' she expressed and cautioned everyone to be careful about pre and post instructions and guidance to be given to students.
As the test is in its initial phase, she asked the counselling cell to make proper reports after conducting the test so as to give inputs to the concerned agency for its further standardisation, if required.
Pertinently winter zone schools are opening from first of March and capacity development of teachers is being done to mentor and guide incoming students after such a long gap.
In the new session this test will be used as a tool to facilitate students for self-awareness, academic choice making and understanding their aptitude for later career decision making.
It is to add that pilot testing of this test was successfully conducted in all the 11 zones of Udhampur District.
Head Counselling Cell DSEJ Romesh Sharma, while speaking at the successful completion of the two days programme advised faculty counsellors to use it as a complimentary tool for exploring /understanding about the child and not to label/judge any child based upon its results. He guided to use some qualitative techniques like observation interview also. Considering it as a bench mark for Government Schools he assured that counselling cell will work for making psychometric testing and individual counselling a permanent feature of Schools.
Dr Alka Sharma and Renu Kotwal, Shanti Saroop Sharma, were the key Resource Person in this training programme who discussed the different aspects of this test including understanding aptitude, seven sub-tests, test administration and scoring, reporting mechanism, precautions.
Dr Surinder Sharma, Preeti Sharma and Manan Mahajan, Team Members Counselling Cell helped in its smooth conduct.