Reading scores have declined across the country by five percent from the previous year. And alarmingly, only 30 percent of children in third grade and two-thirds of fifth graders can solve a simple two digit problem, a decline of six percent from the previous year.

 

Pratham, India’s largest non-profit education organization, has conducted the annual ASER survey since 2005. For the 2011 report, the organization tested reading and math skills for 630,000 children in 16,000 villages across India.

In an e-mail interview with India-West, Pratham program director Rukmini Banerji, who heads up the ASER survey, said, “The Right to Education Act does not explicitly say that learning outcomes must improve. It focuses on completion of eight years of schooling and improving the functioning of schools and training of teachers.”

 

“But if RTE is about guaranteeing education, then without guaranteeing learning, the act has no meaning,” said Banerji.

 

About 97 percent of children aged six to 14 were enrolled in schools, but by the time they reached 15, only a little more than half are still attending school.

 

Addressing the high drop-out rate of Indian school students, Banerji said a big factor was that children were unable to keep up with academics.

 

“Our entire education system is anchored by age-grade structure with an assumed linear progression through the system,” said the economist and educator.

 

“Once you fall behind or don’t take off in the early grades, catching up is really difficult,” stated Banerji, adding that textbooks and teaching methods are not geared to helping those who are not making steady progress.

 

Punjab has consistently bucked the trend of declining test scores by organizing classrooms based on skill level, rather than age.

 

Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal introduced the ASER report last week, but was immediately defensive about its findings, saying it was too early to assess the impact of the RTE Act.

 

“In five to seven years, it will show the impact and we will see improvement,” he said, adding that state governments have been reluctant to implement new education initiatives.

 

Sibal – who is credited with developing RTE - announced that he would write to state chief ministers to promote quality teacher training, including regular attendance and curriculum reform.

The government has allocated Rs. 2.31 trillion for the implementation of RTE over a five-year period that began in April of 2010. 

 

The central government gets two-thirds of that allocation, while states get one-third.

Other findings of the 2011 ASER report included a trend of rural children increasingly enrolling in private schools, with as much as a 10 percent increase in certain states. 

 

“Unless government schools improve their infrastructure and teaching, this trend will continue to grow,” said Pratham founder Madhav Chavan.

The ASER report also found that more toilets were being provided for girls at schools, and also found an increase in the number of school libraries and in students using them. 

About 17 percent of schools had no facility for drinking water, the report said.