The Annual Status of Education Report, 2013, by Pratham, has revealed that the standard of school education was not up to the mark in rural India and claimed that more than half of children in these areas were at least three grade level behind in reading and arithmetic abilities.
It claimed that only about 40 per cent children able to read a Class 1 level paragraph and just about 25 per cent in Class 5 able to solve a simple division.
The report claimed that learning outcome in rural schools continue to remain poor and remained more or less the same as last year, while private schools performed better than government schools. Enrolment level in private schools also continued to rise, with the figure remaining as high as 69 per cent in Kerala.
The survey covered about 16,000 villages and six lakh children between the age group of 3 and 16 years.
Though the report stated that overall enrolment ratio stood at a high of 96 per cent, it said the ability to read and do simple maths continued to remain low.
Due to the performance of students in private schools, the proportion of children able to read at least a Class 1 level paragraph rose slightly from 38.8 per cent in 2012 to 40.2 per cent in 2013.
Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia expressed sadness with the outcomes. “The learning achievements is disappointing,” he said, and also touched on the issues of no-detention policy in classes under the RTE regime.
He sought a detailed study to check the wide variation among states in the learning outcome as highlighted in the survey and the growth of private schools.
Dr Ahluwalia said the survey should cover the urban centres also.
to bring out a comprehensive analysis of the state of education in the country and where do the rural schools stand vis-à-vis city schools.
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‘Education quality failed to improve’
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