The Hindu : Karnataka News : 72 per cent of students cannot subtract: study

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 30, 2011
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Karnataka

Karnataka

72 per cent of students cannot subtract: study

Special Correspondent

Over half the students in class 5 cannot read class 2 texts

Enrolment levels up, but no improvement in learning skills
ASER report covers 27 districts of the State

MYSORE: While the number of students enrolling in schools has increased from 95.1 per cent in 2006 to 96.5 per cent in 2010 in rural areas of the State, there has been no improvement in their learning skills. For, 55 per cent of children in 5th standard cannot read textbooks of the 2nd standard.

Similarly, 72.7 per cent of the sampled students cannot do simple subtraction and only 20 per cent of the students in fifth standard could solve problems in division.

These are some of the findings mentioned in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010 with reference to the rural areas of Karnataka.

The report was released by Mysore Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Satyavathi here on Friday. Madhav Chavan, president and Chief Executive Officer, Pratham Education Foundation, Mumbai, and Ashwini Ranjan, Managing Trustee, Pratham, were present.

Mysore, which has a history of giving importance to education, fares badly compared to the rest of Karnataka under many parameters, and 91.2 per cent of children in the 3-4 age group are in anganwadi or preschool compared to 93.2 per cent in the other districts.

The report points out that 46.4 per cent of children between 3rd and 5th standards can read the textbooks of 1st standard as against 59.6 per cent for Karnataka. The percentage of children of the same level — 3rd to 5th classes — who can do subtraction or more in Mysore rural was 34.4 per cent as against 44.5 per cent in rest of the State. The percentage of children who were sampled for the survey and could answer every day calculations was 40.9 per cent for Mysore as against 57.9 per cent for rest of the State.

Though the Government has gloated over the increase in enrolment levels, little thought has been paid to the quality of learning and the findings of Pratham, a non-governmental organisation which facilitated the preparation of the ASER 2010, underlines this aspect.

The report covers 522 districts of India of the 583, and 27 districts of the State.

The highlights underline the increase in enrolment levels. However, the report pointed out that this was due to the fact that the State Government reduced the minimum age of enrolment in primary schools from 5 years 10 months to 5 years. There is also a shift in the preference of people in rural areas and the number of children enrolled in private schools increased from 16.8 per cent in 2009 to 20 per cent in 2010, as per the report.

ASER is reckoned to be the only source of information regarding learning levels of children in elementary schools.

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

Karnataka