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Maths Greek to rural 5th graders
64 pc of them can’t divide; 40 pc can’t read
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 15
With almost half of Class V children in rural India three grades behind in learning levels than where they should be and 64 per cent unable to divide, quality of school learning remains the single biggest challenge for the government, working to notify the Right to Education Act.

Enrollment is not a worry, as 96 per cent students aged 6 to 14 are in schools; of these, only 22 per cent study privately. Attendance, however, is an issue in government primary schools, where only 75 per cent students are present on a given day, except in six states, including Kerala, Karnataka and Himachal where attendance is over 90 per cent.

Reading and maths abilities of primary students remain poor and have declined in comparison to 2008. While the all-India percentage for all Class V rural students, who can read class II text, has declined from 56.2 per cent to 52.8; those in the same grade in government schools who can do divisions has plummeted from 41 per cent in 2007 to 36.1 now.

Almost 64 per cent Class V government school students in India can’t do divisions; only 56.3 per cent can do subtractions. The situation is no better for private schools. The percentage of children in Class V in government schools, who can read Class II text, has in fact been stagnant at 50 for four years now.

In reading, only Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab have shown some improvements. But none has come through in students’ math abilities. Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir are at the bottom here, with 12 and 17 per cent Class V students, respectively, able to do divisions. Madhya Pradesh and Himachal are the best in India in the reading/math category, with 65 per cent and 63 per cent Class V government schoolers, respectively, able to do divisions.

A major finding of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) put out today by Pratham, which surveyed 575 out of 583 rural districts, is the marginal drop in out of school children aged 11 to 14 -- from 4.3 per cent last year to 4 now.

Girls’ enrollment in the same group has improved in eight states (Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chattisgarh and Gujarat) where 10 per cent girls were out of school in 2006. Bihar has fared the best — it had 17.6 per cent girls out of school in 2006; it now has 6 per cent.

Sadly, Punjab and Andhra are the only states with more girls out of school now than last year. In Punjab, as against 5 per cent girls not studying in 2008, there are 6.3 per cent out of school now. Also, school education here remains one of the most privatised, with 30.3 per cent 6 to 14 year-olds attending private schools. The most privatised education is in Kerala, where 51.5 per cent children study privately, along with Haryana (41 per cent private students), J&K (32), UP (36), Rajasthan (30.4) and Uttarakhand (24.7). The lowest private component is in Orissa (4.4 per cent) and Bihar (5 per cent).

The survey also confirms a steep rise in paid private tuitions. Among government schoolchildren, the percentage of students taking tuitions rises with grades — from 17.1 for Class I to 31 for Class VIII. In private schools, 23.3 per cent take private tuitions from Class I, the percentage peaking to 30 in Class IV.

Children in West Bengal are the most into tuitions, with 90 per cent Class 8 graders paying to get taught. For both government and private schools, percentage of students taking tuitions has risen from 12 (in 2007) to 17.1 now for government and from 19.5 per cent to 23.3 per cent over two years for private schools.

Some hope on English front

General reading abilities apart, rural students are doing well to catch up with English. A quarter of all rural kids in Class V can read simple English sentences and over 80 pc can understand their meaning as well. By Class VIII, 60 pc of kids can read simple English sentences. Love for English is evident in lower grades also, though general learning declines with classes. About 54.6 pc class I and II children in India can read letters or words in English; only 16.7 pc class III to V kids can read sentences in English. Similarly, 78.7 pc Class I and II children can read; only 64 pc class III to V kids can; 78.7 Class I and II graders can recognise numbers 1 to 9; only 56.3 pc Class III to V graders can subtract.