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News: Annual Status of Education Report, 2018 highlights the dismal quality of school learning in India.
Facts:
- The survey for 2018 had a reach of 5.4 lakh students in 596 rural districts.
- There is no remarkable progress in the status of education in schools in rural areas from the base year of 2008.
- In 2008, 53.1% of students in Class 5 in rural government schools could read a text meant for Class 2, but the corresponding figure for 2018 stood at 44.2% and private schools scored 67.9% and 65.1% for the same test in those years.
- Arithmetic ability showed a similar trend of under-performance, although since 2016 a slight improvement of about 1.5% in government and 1.8% in private schools, among Class 5 students.
- Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala and Haryana did better on the arithmetic question with over 50% students clearing it, compared to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and even Karnataka, which scored below 20%.
What could be done?
- Review mechanism: Centre should institute a review mechanism involving all States for both government and private institutions, covering elementary education and middle school, to find out the problems of education sector based on 10 years data.
- Consolidating the RTE: The Right to Education Act brought about a rise in enrolment, which now touches 96% as per ASER data but the law needs a supportive framework to cater to learners from different backgrounds who often cannot rely on parental support or coaching.
- Reforming the curriculum: Curricular expectations on literacy and numeracy have become too ambitious, which should be reoriented towards activity based learning curriculum.
CASE STUDY:
Andhra Pradesh: One study in Andhra Pradesh indicated that bonus pay offered to teachers led to better student scores in an independently administered test in mathematics and language.
