Kids in rural India learn more from tuitions than schools: AESR report

Sun Jan 20 2013, 12:12 hrs

Reflecting the dwindling standard of education across schools in rural India, a report has claimed that students required additional help of tuitions to achieve better learning outcomes.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), based on a survey covering about six lakh children in 567 districts of rural India, has said tuition-going students were much more clear with their arithmetic concepts.

"The influence of additional inputs in the form of tuition on the children's ability to read or do arithmetic is clear. Whether enrolled in government school or private school, children receiving this addition support have better learning outcomes than those who do not," it said.

The report also revealed that enrolment in private schools had jumped by 10 per cent in the last three years.

It said that in 2012, of all the children enrolled in standard I to VIII, close to 45 per cent were going to private schools or taking to private tuitions.

Enrolment among the 6-14 age group in private schools has gone up from 18.7 per cent in 2006 to 28.3 per cent in 2012, the report said while raising a big question mark on the quality outcomes especially in the RTE regime.

It said if the current trend of enrolment in private school continues, "then by 2018 India may have 50 per cent children attending private schools even in rural areas".

In fact, more than 40 per cent of the children in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Goa and Meghalaya were enrolled in private schools, it said. In Kerala and Manipur, the figure was more than 60 per cent.

The ASER report also found that only five out of 10 students studying in class V in rural India could solve simple arithmetic problems.

It said that while in 2010 more than half of class V students were able to read class II level texts, the proportion came down to 46.8 per cent in 2012.

"The decline in reading levels is more visible among children in government schools as compared to those in private schools... It has fallen from 50.7 per cent in 2010 to 41.7 per cent in 2010," it said.

Barring Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala, it said every major state has shown signs of a "substantial drop" in the arithmetic learning levels.

Incidentally, 2012 was designated as the year of mathematics in India.

The report also sought to put a big question about the outcome of Right To Education (RTE) noting that though compliance with norms and standards specified by RTE has

improved since 2010, "most children in schools today are at least three grade levels behind where they should be".

Learning deficit from primary school influence learning outcome at the secondary school level too, it said.

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