EDUCATION REPORT 2010

n the largest household survey of the status of education in India, Punjab has emerged as the only state to post consistent improvements over the past three years in learning outcomes and arithmetical abilities of children aged 6 to 14 attending government schools in rural areas.
It has also scripted history by being the sole state where mathematical skills of schoolchildren improved in 2010 as compared to 2009 when nationally there has been a decline in the children’s ability to recognise numbers, divide or subtract.
Made public today by Vice-President Hamid Ansari, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2010 brought out by community-based organisation Pratham shows that the proportion of Class I children who can recognise numbers 1 to 9 dropped from 69.3 per cent in 2009 to 65.8 per cent in 2010. Similarly, the percentage of Class III children who can do two-digit subtractions has reduced over the same period from 39 to 36.5 and that of Class V students who can do divisions has declined from 38 to 35.9 per cent. But Punjab stands out as an exception with its children improving their math abilities over 2009. In 2010, 70.4 per cent of Punjab’s Class II children could recognise numbers up to 100 - the double of 2008 when the percentage was just 56.3 per cent; it was 59.6 in 2009.
Similarly, the proportion of Punjab’s Class IV children who can do subtractions has risen from 66.9 in 2008 and 71 per cent in 2009 to 81.4 in 2010. The percentage of Class V children who can do divisions has also improved significantly from just 43.5 in 2008 and 48 per cent in 2009 to 69.8 in 2010. Even on children’s reading abilities, nationally, there has been no improvement over the last six years since Pratham began surveying schools. The percentage of Class V children across India who can’t read Class II text was stagnant at 50 per cent in 2010. But Punjab has managed gains here: 73.8 per cent of its Class III-IV children can read Class I text while nationally this percentage is just 64.

State Shining

• Punjab has entered the league of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, the traditional high-performing states so far as quality of school education goes
• Apart from math, language abilities of children have improved remarkably
• Experts attribute it to “Parrho Punjab” scheme where children with similar competencies are grouped together and taught through simple activities