Salient Features of the 10th ASER report (Rural)
Recently provisional data of 10th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has been released; full data will be released by 1 August 2015. 1st report was released in 2005, so 10th report is basically a report card of initiatives taken by two successive UPA governments for education. In 2005, 93.4% of 6-14 years old were enrolled in schools and proportion of standard 4 students who could read standard 2 texts was 47%. Thus there was a gigantic task ahead to improve basic learning achievements in reading, writing and maths. But NCERT rejected ASER reports of 2005 and launched National Curriculum Framework in 2005. After repetitive results shown by assessment through ASER annually, finally RTE (Right to Education) Act was passed in 2009. In 2010 ASER showed decline in learning level and increasing enrolment in private schools, but government did not recognise it.
During 2nd decade of this century government mainly focussed on creating infrastructure for education, quality learning aspect was not given due importance. It clearly showed SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan) was designed to achieve infrastructural goals. Various trends in education as noticed in 10th ASER (provisional) are discussed below:
Share of students going to private schools
10th ASER has revealed that 30.8% of rural students are enrolled in private school, which was 16.3% in 2005. It clearly shows that in spite of free education, mid day meal, free text books, free uniforms in government school, parents are ready to spend out of their pocket on education in private school. Therefore infrastructural needs are no more deciding factor in increasing enrolment ratio in government schools. In other words learning outcomes are increasingly playing important role in compelling parents to get their children enrolled in private schools.
Not only enrolment in private school is on the rise, but the children studying in government school and go to private tutor is continuously increasing, it is shown in following graphics:
Learning outcomes in government is on decline
Proportion of children studying in higher standards but unable to read texts of lower standards is on the rise. Certainly quality of infrastructure is not the sole reason for this, in fact in spite of increasing improvement in infrastructure there is no corresponding improvement in quality learning. Teacher’s quality in government is to be blamed here. Teacher’s training programme need to be strengthened. Following diagram shows the low learning level in government schools.
Wide gap between learning abilities of students in private and government schools
Quality of education in private school is certainly on the rise and its gap with government school is also expanding as shown in the following diagram. This is the reason for increasing enrolment in private schools.
Pupil to teacher ratio
Pupils to teacher ratio has decreased from 36 in 2005 to 25 in 2013 for primary schools and from 39 to 17 for upper primary during the same period as reported by DISE(District Information System for Education). But even where this ratio is good , learning outcomes are not up to the mark, so teacher’s training is lagging behind the desired level.
Summary
Report card of last 10 years reveals that government spent money on building schools, hiring teachers, providing free text books, uniforms and mid day meals but the net enrolment in government schools went down and it increased sharply in private schools, particularly for primary stage. Since 2012 Planning Commission has changed its focus to learning outcomes which shows a positive effort.
Teachers who teach primary and upper primary standards has the duty to assess each child’s learning ability and provide additional instructions as required. Teacher’s quality is directly manifested in the learning outcomes of the students. Infrastructural aspect of education has been improving at good pace but learning outcomes are falling continuously for government school’s students.
Recent initiative by the new government ”Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat” to create a base for reading, writing and math fluency is good step. However it is yet to be seen if it will succeed as envisaged. It requires necessary political will to succeed.
