School children stumble on basics of English, arithmetic

Neena Sharma

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, January 16

Even as the Uttarakand government has made considerable improvement to meet the RTE norms in the government primary schools, schoolchildren continue to fare poorly in learning English and mathematics.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2014, says in standard III, 11.1 per cent of children cannot read letters, 20 per cent can read letters but no more while 15.2 per cent children can read words but not standard I level text or higher, and 18 per cent can read standard I level text, not standard II text. However, the proportion of children who can read class II text increases as the children go up the classes.

The survey facilitated by Delhi based NGO Pratham carried a survey in 301 primary and upper primary schools (Classes I-VIII) in which around 5000 schoolchildren involved were of rural areas of 13 districts of the state.

Similarly, while assessing the children’s proficiency in numbers, the survey found out that 8.1 per cent of class III children cannot even recognise numbers 1-9, 29.9 per cent can recognise numbers up to 9 but not more, 32.8 per cent can recognise numbers up to 99 but cannot do substraction.

Significantly, in both English and arithmetic learning skills, the state private schools fare slightly better than the government schools.

Since the implementation of the Right to Education Act in the state in 2009-2010, the schools have a slightly improved pupil-teacher ratio. The percentage of schools that were able to meet parent-teacher ratio was 20.5 in 2013 and 24.6 in 2014, and the percentage of schools that were able to achieve classroom teacher ratio in 2013 was 85.5 and in 2014, it was 86.1.

Reacting to the report Seema Jaunsari, Director, Basic Education, said that the state needs to focus more on what is being taught inside the classrooms by focusing on basics at the primary level.

On the other hand as far as providing separate usable toilets for girls is concerned, around 53 schools had these facilities and around 26.2 per cent of the schools continued to have no toilets for girls. Also around 17.7 per cent of the schools did not have any drinking water facility.

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