The Hindu : Other States / Maharashtra News : Eight-lakh Maharashtra students are unlettered

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 24, 2005

Other States

Other States - Maharashtra

Eight-lakh Maharashtra students are unlettered

Mahesh Vijapurkar

Crash course to improve skills in schools

MUMBAI: Over 8.31-lakh students in Standard II to VII in Maharashtra's civic and zilla parishad schools cannot read, write or do arithmetic.

A two-month crash course to improve their skills is now under way and would end on April 30. And on May 1, they would all be asked to read, write and do sums at the village chavdis to prove that they have gained new skills during the course. Curiously, the students have not dropped out. . The pressure is now on the students and teachers since they have to prove their skills publicly.

The outcome, officials say, would determine how support programmes for poor learners would shape in the long term. If the results are encouraging, parents who are either casual or ignorant would become more demanding.

`A crisis'

In `progressive' Maharashtra, the literacy rate is officially put at 77.27 per cent with only 43 per cent of the students being functionally literate. Dropout rates in standard IV is 15 per cent and in standard VII 22 per cent, with only 50 per cent continuing their studies till standard X. If the non-learners too dropped out, the picture would be more bleak. "This is a crisis," an official said.

But the approach has been positive. The teachers, at least partly responsible for this state of affairs, have not been blamed but have been asked to help students with a crash course. The three-hour classes a day are split into two sessions and regularly monitored by about 6,000 Education Department personnel who have skipped holidays for weeks.

Continuing role for teachers

If "we fault the teachers for their obvious neglect instead of motivating them to participate in the programme, the crash course would have faltered at the start itself," says J.M. Abhyankar, Director of the Prathamik Shikshan Parishad, implementing the ambitious programme. The teachers have to be stakeholders because they have a continuing role to play.

`Figures alarming'

Officials say these figures are "alarming," "frightening" and "shameful." One calls it a "disconcerting phenomenon that developed and strengthened over years of neglect. It is hard to imagine that a student of standard II and some of standard VII can be equally devoid of skills." If the crash course is successful, it could be a turning point.

These students constitute some 10 per cent of those enrolled in schools run by the civic and zilla parishads across the State. Private schools have performed better. About 4.28-lakh children, who should be in schools, are out of it, including nearly 78,000 children in metropolitan Mumbai. The city also has 48,000 "illiterate students."

Mr. Abhyankar is optimistic that there would be 60 per cent progress among the students in acquiring skills with the three `Rs'. Once this happened, the focus would shift to improving the quality of teaching , identifying the poor learners early on and finding correctives. "We are looking for long-term gains."

He says that 90 per cent teachers are fully involved and May 1 would prove that effort has been worthwhile. But the poorest response has come from cities such as Mumbai where a teachers' union finds the extra hours a burden.

Teacher absenteeism

Maharashtra's teacher absenteeism is only 11 per cent but the huge number of poor learners indicates their neglect as well. The February survey to pinpoint the levels of standards also threw up the fact that most of the disadvantaged students were from a poor economic background. Only about 10 per cent of such students had low IQ. All poor learners have nearly 75 per cent attendance.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Other States

News Update

Stories in this Section

Eight-lakh Maharashtra students are unlettered