Survey: Education standards declining in India despite funding

January 18, 2014

The annual survey done by the Indian education research group Pratham disclosed that the standards of education in rural India have declined every year since 2009 in spite of huge government funding in the field. The survey was conducted in 16,000 villages across the country and covered around 6,00,000 students in government and private schools in rural areas.

Pratham survey highlights:

The Right to Education (RTE) Act passed in 2009 guarantees state schooling for children from 6-14 years of age. However, the enrollment levels reached 96% in this age category in 2013, a marginal difference from 2012.
In 2009, 52.8% of children in standard five across government and private schools were able to read a text from standard two, this fell to 47% in 2013.
The enrollment of children in private schools increased slightly in 2013 to 29 %. This number was just 18.7 % in 2006.
The guarantee of education is meaningless without satisfactory learning. There are serious implications for India’s equity and growth if basic learning outcomes do not improve soon.

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