SHILLONG: Education system in the State needs an immediate revamp to bring in qualitative learning as 47.9 per cent of the students in Class V are unable to read a standard-II textbook in mother tongue fluently, reveals the 11th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016.
The report, which was released in New Delhi on Wednesday, shows despite an impressive school enrolment, the quality of education in all fields, including reading, arithmetic and English comprehension is poor.
The report compiled by Pratham Education Foundation is the largest annual household survey in rural India that focuses on the status of children’s schooling and basic learning. The survey was carried out by volunteers from local partner organizations of Pratham in 589 districts in the country. The analysis, which is based on data from households in seven districts of Meghalaya, showed 2.4 per cent of the students in Class III cannot even read alphabets, 13.6 per cent can read letters but not words or higher, 37.5 per cent can read words but not Class I textbooks and 27.2 per cent can read Class I level text but not Class-II textbooks. Only 19.3 per cent can read Class-II textbooks.
The English reading skill of rural students is also a cause for concern.
According to the ASER data, 54.5 per cent of the students in Class III can read words but not sentences and 4.4 per cent cannot even read capital letters.
Students in rural areas have shown low-level of performance in Arithmetic as 69.1 per cent of the students in Class III cannot do subtraction and can recognise numbers up to 99. Only 1 per cent can do division. Only 10.3 per cent of the students in Class V can solve a three-digit division.
However, enrolment in schools is high with 97 per cent of the rural children in the age group of 6-14 years in school.
The mid day meal facility is improving as per the survey conducted in 129 government schools.
