The
State of Our Education
... Shahidur Rashid Talukdar <contact@srtalukdar.com>
Annual
Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010 is out. Thanks to PRATHAM, they
carried out the tedious survey covering over 13000 schools from over
500 districts of India. Although it has some good news like improvement
in Gross Enrollment but not so good news such as only 53.4% children in
Std 5 can read a Std II level text! This suggests that even after five
years in school, close to half of all children are not even at the
level expected of them after two years in school! Some findings of the
report are as follows.
Percentage of out of school children in
India at its lowest ever, which is definitely a Good News! In 2010, for
rural India, the percentage of children (age 6 to 14) not enrolled in
school is 3.5%. This number was 4.0% last year and 6.6% in 2005.The
proportion of girls (age 11-14) who are still out of school has
declined from 6.8% in 2009 to 5.9 in 2010. This number was 11.2% in
2005.
However, the percentage of out of school girls (11-14)
is still high in some states like Rajasthan (12.1%) and Uttar Pradesh
(9.7%) where the proportion remains largely unchanged since last year.
Noteworthy
in this regard is the performance of Bihar where the percentage of out
of school girls and boys in all age groups has been declining steadily
since 2005. In 2006, 12.3% of boys and 17.6% girls were out of school
in the 11 to 14 age group. By 2010, these numbers had declined to 4.4%
for boys and 4.6% for girls showing very little difference by gender.
Although
the report ASER 2010 points out some of the aforesaid positive
developments, the report exposes a bleak picture of the overall
development which demands an urgent attention of the Government, the
Public, the Civil Societies, and especially "citizens".
The
report notes that there are big increases in private school enrollment
in some states since last year. Overall, ASER 2010 shows that private
school enrollment for rural children in the age group 6 to 14 has
increased from 21.8% in 2009 to 24.3% in 2010. This number has risen
steadily since 2005 when it was 16.3%nationally.
The
southern states show substantial increases over last year in private
school enrollment for the age group 6 to 14. Between 2009 and 2010, the
percentage of children (age 6-14) enrolled in private school has
increased from 29.7% to 36.1% in Andhra Pradesh, from 19.7% to 25.1% in
Tamil Nadu, from 16.8% to 20% in Karnataka and from 51.5% to 54.2% in
Kerala. Among other states, Punjab shows an increase from 30.5% to 38%.
however, private school enrollment (age 6-14) remains low in Bihar
(5.2%), West Bengal (5.9%), Jharkhand (8.8%), Orissa (5.4%) and Tripura
(2.8%).
Is not the last point shameful? Why our
multi-thousand-crore Rupees Public Education System, which is supposed
to provide free education, fails to attract children, when an average
Indian parent struggles hard to meet the ends with meager resources? Do
people like to waste their money on the mercenaries of private
education? Of course not! The fact is that the public education system
fails miserably to provide quality education.
What is the way
out? How long we will keep paying for the Govt. school teachers and the
staffs from our tax money and let them sleep? If we don’t wake up at
some point it will continue to grow. And the poor people will have to
pay the price by NOT being able to send their kids to decent schools!
The consequence will be a few more generations of semi-literate or
illiterate Indians!
The gravest concern is the quality
of education provided throughout India. The report states that the
reading ability of children has remained largely unchanged except in
some states. That means there is little or no progress! Nationally
there is not much change in reading levels as compared to last year.
Only
53.4% children in Std 5 can read a Std II level text. In Andhra
Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana and Rajasthan, there is increase in the
proportion of
|
children in Std I who are able to recognize letters. Similarly, in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab,
Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, there is increase in the proportion of
children in Std V who can read Std II level text.
This
suggests that even after five years in school, close to half of all
children are not even at the level expected of them after two years in
school. What worse can we expect? The study notices that there are
small declines in math ability except in some states. Is not it
shameful and Alarming? We have not only failed to make progress or
maintain the staus quo, rather we are going down the lane!
Nationally,
there is a decline in the ability to do basic math (i.e. recognize
numbers and do basic operations). This decrease of a few percentage
points is visible across all classes. For example, the proportion of
Std I children who can recognize numbers (1-9) has declined from 69.3%
in 2009 to 65.8% in 2010.
The proportion of children in Std
III who can do two digit subtraction problems has decreased from 39% to
36.5% in the same period. The proportion of children in Std V who can
do simple division problems in Std V has dropped from 38% in 2009 to
35.9% in 2010.
However, Punjab’s performance in basic
arithmetic has been improving over the last few years. For example, in
Std II the percentage of children who can recognize numbers up to 100
was 56.3% in 2008. This number went up to 59.6% in 2009 and to 70.4% in
2010. Similarly, the proportion of Std IV children who can do
subtraction has gone from 66.9% in 2008 to 81.4% in 2010. The
percentage of Std V children who can do division has risen from 43.5%
in 2008 to 69.8% in 2010.
In ASER 2010, children in Std V and
above were asked a set of questions that involved calculations that
people do in everyday life. The tasks included calculations from a
menu, using a calendar, estimating volume and calculating area.
Overall,
in Std VIII, three quarters of all children were able to do the
calculations based on the menu, about two thirds of all children could
use the calendar and only half could do the calculations related to
area. The questions related to area seemed to be the most difficult for
children to solve. Such problems are usually found in textbooks in Std
IV or V. Here, among Std VIII children, Kerala does best with 79%
children able to solve the problems followed by Bihar at 69%.
Grossly,
the study finds that Middle school children are weak on everyday
calculations. So what purpose does going to school serve? When the
children, after having spent 7 to 8 years in school, can not read a
basic level text and fail to do everyday calculation, what can we call
it? Schooling or waste of time? We as a nation need to ask ourselves:
Where are we Heading to?
The trend of attending tuition is
going down for private school children . Nationally, there is not much
change between 2009 and 2010 in the proportion of children who are
enrolled in government schools and also take extra paid tuition
classes. However there is a clear decrease in the incidence of tuition
among children enrolled in private schools across all classes till Std
VIII. This shows the private schools are improving their service, why
is it not the same in Public Schools?
Some states like Bihar,
West Bengal and Orissa have very low private school enrollments but
high proportions of children enrolled in government schools who also
take tuition classes. For example, in 2010, in West Bengal 75.6% of Std
V children enrolled in government schools take tuition classes. This
number for Bihar is 55.5% and 49.9% for Orissa.
Brothers
and sisters, Indians, let's forget about all the divisive issues for a
while and think and contemplate: is it the right kind of progress we
are making as a nation? How we can fix the rot? If we can come on the
streets for other issues like Masjid, Mandir, Church, Telangana, or
Kashmir why not raise our voice for improving the situation of
Education? Can we afford to keep quiet about this?
|
Download pdf (3.9 mb)