The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : State placed 21st in NCERT survey

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Saturday, Aug 16, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

State placed 21st in NCERT survey

Survey covered 3,756 students, 468 teachers, 306 schools across 11 districts in State

HYDERABAD: Contrary to the State Government’s tall claims on improving school education, the State figured in the 21st position among 33 States and Union Territories in the Mid Term National survey, conducted by the National Council of Educational Research Training (NCERT), to gauge the learning achievement of 5th class children. The survey report was released last week.

The survey tested the learning achievement of all essential competencies and concepts taught in major curricular areas at 5th class level in mathematics, environmental studies and languages. It covered 84,322 students, 14,810 teachers and 6,828 schools across 266 districts in the country. In the State, it covered 3,756 students, 468 teachers and 306 schools across 11 districts.

The State’s average in comprehension of the English subject and decimal and fraction in Mathematics was 35.59 per cent and 32.06 per cent respectively, which is much below the national average of 45.27 per cent and 38.2 per cent respectively. Learning difficulties in Mathematics has reduced to 32.06 per cent now compared to 33.13 per cent in Base Line Achievement (BLA) measured in 2001-02.

Primary schools

The survey revealed that students in primary schools in the country performed very poorly in mathematics but did well in languages and environmental studies (EVS). While 70 per cent students scored over 50 per cent marks in languages, only 41 per cent students could manage over 50 per cent. It was found that only 11 per cent students achieved more than 80 per cent marks in mathematics. Concepts of fraction, decimal and measurement were found to be the most difficult areas for the students.

Heartening factor was that national average in mathematics was 48.46 per cent indicating an increase of 1.95 per cent from BLA of 2001-02. But only eight states scored more than the national average and the State was placed last among these.

Another interesting aspect was that rural students scored better than their urban peers. In urban areas, girls scored significantly better than boys and social group wise, children from other’s and OBC category scored better than their SC and ST counterparts. Similar pattern was seen in both languages and Environmental Studies though urban students fared better in languages. The survey also found that achievement in languages increased by 8 per cent when children had access to newspapers and other supplementary reading material at home indicating the importance study material. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan inputs helped in enhancing the achievement by 2 per cent. Achievement of Scheduled Caste children significantly improved – two per cent in language and four per cent in mathematics.

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