 | STATE SHOULD TAKE CONTROL OF PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION.
'Rural learning standards low'
Anahita Mukherji, TNN, Feb 1, 2011, 05.12am IST
MUMBAI: A survey on the state of education in rural Maharashtra throws up some good news and some bad news. The good news is that enrolment and attendance are high across the state. The bad news, though, is that learning standards are rather low.
For the sixth year in a row, Pratham, an NGO, released its Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) (ASER) 2010, anauthoritative private review of the education system. While the report for the entire country was released earlier this month, a detailed report on Maharashtra was out on Monday afternoon.
The report shows that a whopping 99% of all children in the 6-14 age group in Maharashtra were enrolled in school. During a discussion in Mantralaya over the figures, it was pointed out that attendance rates may be lower, as not all children enrolled in school actually attend classes. According to Usha Rane, director (training) at Pratham, an estimated 8.5% don't attend school.
The state has a particularly dismal record in mathematics, with a decline in learning levels when compared with the previous year. So, while ASER 2009 showed that 49% of all Class V children could not do division, the 2010 report showed that the figure had jumped to 58.6%. And while 44.5% of Class III kids surveyed in 2009 were unable to do subtraction, in 2010, the number jumped to 53.3%. When it comes to the ability to subtract numbers, for instance, Punjab and Kerala fare better than Maharashtra.
There was no improvement in reading levels, with a marginal rise in the number of Class III students who could not read Class I texts and Class V students who could not read Class II texts.
Maharashtra can, however, take comfort from the fact that its performance in all spheres is better than the national average. "As a minister, I'm glad that Maharashtra has done better than the country average. But this is not good enough," said state education minister Rajendra Darda. According to Farida Lambay, co-founder of Pratham, the results show that Maharashtra's education outcomes have been stagnant, and the state has not "taken the leap to the next level."
"Maharashtra sees itself as a progressive state and so it has not made much effort to improve," she said. "While the enrolment rate at pre-schools (balwadis, anganwadis and kindergarten) is high, it's time the state took control of pre-school education," said Lambay. Darda, too, expressed the need to regularize pre-school education, at a time when several pre-schools across the state are charging exorbitant fees. |
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