The Indian education and social arrangements are very inflexible
on kids. There is no hand of cultivating wisdom and knowledge
in education system. Indian education system mainly emphasizes on theoretical knowledge.
As per the UNESCO data India has one of the lowest public expenditure rates in education
per student, especially compared to other Asian countries like China.
Education in most schools is one dimensional with an
obsessive focus on marks rather than focusing on learning. Quality teachers
are the missing link in Indian education system.
With a literacy rate of 77%, India lags behind other BRICS Nations,
which have literacy rates above 90%. All these countries have better
student-teachers ratios.
What newly released ASER report says
about Indian education condition?
Annual Status of Education Report 2018, released in January
2019 is being released by a non-governmental organization Pratham since 2005.
Each year’s report has been presenting a low quality picture of primary
education in India.
What are the focus areas?
The reports focus on children aged between 6 years and 14
years in rural India. It shows the schooling status and the impact of primary
education on a child’s ability to complete basic reading and arithmetic tasks.
Despite enacting Right to Education in 2010, which has mandated free and
compulsory education for each child between the age of 6 and 14 years, learning
outcomes remained poor.
The report was based
on an annual household survey which covered 5.46 lakh children in 596 rural districts
across the country
Quality of Education
Only 65% class 5 students studying in private schools can
read class 2 level text and 44.2% in government schools, which is 2.5% more
than 2016.
Due to the poor reading ability in class the overall ability to deal
with textbooks in higher standards has lowered.
Class 2 Children are expected to be able to read a simple
text fluently and do basic maths like subtraction. But 72% students in class V
can’t do division at all and 70% of class III student are not able to do any subtraction.
For class 8, which is the last year of compulsory education
under RTE, one in every four children is without basic reading skills. This
number has not changed since 2016.
In 2018, the highest reading abilities across the country
have been reported from hibachi Pradesh at 74.5% followed by Kerala at 73.1 and
the lowers is from Jharkhand with only 29.4.
What are the gender differences in the
report?
For the age group 14 to 16, the proportion of girls who can
read at least class 2 level texts outperforms boys in many states like Himachal
Pradesh, Pradesh, Punjab, west Bengal, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra,
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
For the age group 14 to 16, the proportion of girls who read
at least class 2 level texts outperforms boys in many states like Himachal Pradesh,
Punjab, west Bengal, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Enrollments
The proportion of children (age 6-14) who are not enrolls in
school has fallen below 3% for the first time in 2018 and stands at 2.8%. In
terms of gender-specific enrolment too, percentage of girls outside if school
has fallen to 4.1 a drop of over 2% points.
Concerns
Despite this development, the broader trend is still
worrying. The basic reading and mathematics abilities of children in class VIII
continue to slowly decline.
For instance, among class VIII students attending government
schools, the proportion that can read class II test has continue to decline
from 83.6% a decade ago to 69% in 2018.
The proportion is similar when it comes to mathematics
abilities. The picture is slightly more encourage at the class III level, where
there has been gradual improvement since 2014.
However, even in 2018, less than 30% of students in class
III are actually at their grade level, that is able to read a class II text and
do double-digit subtraction.
The performance in private schools is better than government
schools. In fact, in private schools, reading and mathematical abilities for
students in both class V class VIII have shown improvement. But the performance
difference is not great as learning defect is present across both government and
private schools.
Findings
RTE has been successful in raising enrolments in schools in
rural India (Above 95% since 230017), and out of school numbers is also declining
and the gender gap is shrinking. Reading abilities of children have also shown gradual
improvement and arithmetic abilities are bad. Overall quality of education in India
or learning outcomes is the worst performer in school education and needs immediate
attention.
Reasons for slow improvement in quality
of education in schools
There are several reasons for the slow improvement in
quality education. First government funding for education was meager 2.4% in
2016 and out if total expenditure in education, primary education receives
around 28% share.
Low time for classroom instruction preparation by teacher
who are mostly involved in administrative and non-academic duties by the government.
low quality and diversity of teaching material, lack of props like maps,
posters and physical models, make teaching a boring and difficult task for
students, which is a result of lack of funds for these props by schools.
Lack of incentives for teachers and low teacher-pupil ratio.
Why is learning level in schools
important?
Since children at the
higher primary level are closest to joining the labour market or the next level
of education, they need adequate foundational skills such as literacy and
numeracy.
The quality or learning
levels bears directly on India’s future workforce, and its competitiveness and
the economy.
India’s demographic
dividend depends on the learning level of students. Thus, it can be revealed
from the latest report that India continues to stay at a crisis and hence need
concerted efforts to be taken at the earliest.
Ranking mechanism for teacher training
institute
National Council for Teacher
Education is working and will soon put out a ranking mechanism for teacher training
institute using a new framework – TeachR which will divide them in four categories
– A,BC and D. The institutes falling in D category will be asked to shut down
with immediate effect and those falling in C category will have to make and
meet changes within 12 months or face shut down.
