48 pc students commute to school on foot, 25 pc schools lack parental support in learning: MoE survey
Vibha Sharma
New Delhi, May 26
As many as 72 per cent of children have access to digital devices at home, 96 per cent like coming to school and 94 per cent say they feel safe there, according to the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 conducted by the Education Ministry.
The survey also pointed out that 25 per cent schools face lack of parental support in students’ learning.
Meanwhile, 48 per cent of students commute to school on foot, 18 per cent on bicycle and only 9 per cent have access to school and public transport. Eight per cent students commute to school using their own transport (two-wheeler) and just 3 per cent a four-wheeler, according to the survey in which 34 lakh students of 1.18 lakh schools in 720 districts from rural and urban areas across the country participated.
Conducted for Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 in government, government-aided and private schools, last year, the survey aims to enable analysis of results and remedial action at appropriate levels.
According to the survey, 87 per cent schools provide guidance on how parents can support children in learning and 25 per cent of them claimed to be facing lack of support from parents in students’ learning. Only 51 per cent of students confirmed the availability of books or magazines for parents at home, 91 per cent said they asked questions to teachers during classroom transactions and 89 per cent said they shared lessons taught in schools with family. As many as 18 per cent said their mothers cannot read or write, seven per cent said they were literate without schooling while five percent said their schooling was below primary levels.
Learning at home
during pandemic…
- Joyful, was fun: 45 per cent
- Faced difficulty in learning: 38 per cent
- No difference, same as school: 50 per cent
- Burdensome, lot of assignments: 78 per cent
- No digital device at home: 24 per cent
- Learn better at school with peers help: 80 per cent
- Lot of time to learn new things: 70 per cent
Subjects covered in the survey included Language, Mathematics and EVS for classes 3 and 5; Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Science for class 8 and Language, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and English for class 10.
As far as the teachers are concerned, 44 per cent said they do not have adequate work space while 65 per cent claimed to be overloaded with work while 97 per cent said they had job satisfaction. Just around 58 per cent teachers participated in discussions around the new National Education Policy (NEP), as per the survey in which five lakh teachers participated.
