State shouldn't stop at above national average performance on a majority of parameters in primary education in rural areas, as a lot still remains to be done
When his government is at the receiving end ahead of general elections, state education minister Vinod Tawde should find great satisfaction in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2018), which shows that Maharashtra has registered a performance above the national average on a majority of the parameters in primary education in rural areas.
ADVERTISEMENT
Compliments to the minister, his department, teachers and students, who we wish, are not complacent in the next academic session, half of which will overlap with election activities. ASER's mixed findings are elating as well as upsetting. As against the national average for children - who can read the alphabet and more — which is 46.8 per cent, the state increased its rate to 66.2 per cent. Great achievement for the state government is that 34,000 students of private schools have shifted to government schools last year.
This shows that a sincere, consistent, and quality effort could get government schools their lost glory back, and also justify the whopping annual expenses of R58,000 crore on salaries and pension of teaching and non-teaching staff. State-run primary schools may be on a roll, but secondary schools that are largely run by aided/unaided private bodies but regulated by the government have remained out of focus for long. They need a booster. ZPs zoom up ASER found zilla parishad school students doing much better than their counterparts in private schools. The report was released last week and it should be great news to hardworking teachers in the villages, who have been carrying the burden of doing things that were different from what they had been doing in the past.
The outcome is a combined effort of the teachers, zilla parishad education officers, and the Mantralaya mandarins, who thought of acting on ASER's previous findings that left scope for much progress, if shown strong willpower by stakeholders. The state education is improving in some verticals, but remains stagnant in others. A credible non-profit organisation, Pratham, conducts a methodical survey across the country engaging a sizable sample size. The performance of primary school students has been rated higher than the national average. But upper primary continues to remain a concern as it has not shown a significant change. This is where more efforts are needed, in terms of teachers who are trained better. But the findings of upper primary are alarming. It's sad that 19.8 per cent children of Class VIII could not read Class II text.
The percentage counts for one-fifth of the surveyed children. 'Fun'damental change In the past four years, some experimental ideas seemed to have worked at basic level. Instead of making students memorise lessons, focus was shifted to mixing fun with education, especially in math and craft. Fifty successful ideas were taken to one lakh teachers through training sessions. The outcome is showing slowly. Next step will be to ensure the outcome grows every academic session. Findings about reading skills continue to throw surprises and concerns that need more attention in the future. At primary school level, the report found 44.2 per cent children in ZP schools could read Class II texts as compared to only 33.6 per cent students in private schools. Class V students showed remarkable improvement when they were asked to read a story from the Class II curriculum.
The percentage of successful students was 66 — up from 51.7 per cent three years ago. The same percentage of students solved division problems — the biggest challenge they face in the math session — compared to 20.5 per cent in 2016. Policy and team work Tawde said the outcome was the result of a tweaked policy and the hard work of teachers. "Maharashtra may have done better in math and reading skills than other states, but that doesn't satisfy us. We need to improve further," he said and added that students were discouraged from buying things for craft/activity classes. Instead, they were asked to use waste. Teachers were allowed to use mobile phones because many innovative teachers have made apps or created educative games that are shared across for using in the schools. Most importantly, teachers and parents can directly communicate with education officers.
The number of school-going children (between ages 6 and 14) has increased marginally in the past decade. Private schools continue to remain their favourite destination, despite last year showing a reverse trend in which parents have started shifting students from expensive private medium schools to government schools, where education is almost free. However, in a progressive state like ours, 5.1 per cent girls in the age group of 15 to 16 years don't go to schools. But then the rate is much less than the national average of 13.5 per cent. Tawde promises to find resolutions to pending issues even as he is faced with the task of filling 20,000 vacancies of school teachers. Now he has promised a deadline of March 5, 2019, to complete the recruitment. Tough job, but all the best Mr Tawde.
Dharmendra Jore is political editor, mid-day. He tweets @dharmendrajore Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com
Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest news!" Click here!
