Revision as of 21:36, 24 February 2018

Schools with playgrounds: India

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content.

1 The buses of Schools
- 1.1 SC’s guidelines of 1997
2 CBSE’s rules, guidelines
3 Electricity connections
- 3.1 2017
4 Fees
5 Laboratories
6 Policies, reforms
- 6.1 No-detention policy fails
7 Playgrounds
8 Private schools, unaided
- 8.1 Terminating services of teachers
9 The status of school education in India
- 9.1 Rural schools: 2009-14
- 9.2 Rural schools, 2014-16
10 The students of Schools
11 Syllabus
- 11.1 SC: Common syllabus for all schools is ‘impossible’
12 Teacher-student ratio
- 12.1 2014-15
- 12.2 Number of teachers per school, 2016
13 Teachers
- 13.1 Hiring and transfer of teachers
- 13.2 Uniforms/ dress code for Teachers
14 Working days, vacations
- 14.1 220+ working days in Delhi
15 See also

The buses of Schools

SC’s guidelines of 1997

Dhananjay Mahapatra, SC's code on school bus observed mostly in breach, Jan 20 2017: The Times of India

Speed Limit Was Fixed At 40Kmph

The Supreme Court laid down elaborate guidelines in 1997 for school bus operations across the country to minimise risk to the lives of school children, months after a school bus plunged into the Yamuna at Wazirabad in Delhi and left 28 students dead.

Police and other authorities have blinked at schools operating buses without follo wing the guidelines. The SC had made it clear that only drivers with five years' heavy vehicle driving experience would be eligible to ferry schoolchildren, any driver booked twice for traffic-related offences was to be pulled out of duty.

Apart from that, the court had directed a series of preventive measures -first-aid box in buses, doors to be fitted with proper lock, fire extinguisher, horizontal parallel grills on windows, school bag tray under the seat and provision for water in school buses. Besides, it had made it mandatory for a supervisor, deputed by the school, to accompany the children.

In addition, the court on December 16, 1997 had ordered, “On or after April 30, 1998, no bus used or in the service of an educational institution shall be permitted to operate without a qualified conductor being present at all times.“

CBSE’s rules, guidelines

'Mandatory disclosures' for schools

CBSE extends deadline for 'mandatory disclosures' TNN | Nov 1, 2016, The Times of India

BHOPAL: Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in its latest circular has strictly asked 991 CBSE affiliated schools in Madhya Pradesh including 95 from Bhopal [Indpaedia: this applies to all CBSE affiliated schools in India] to conform to its order to display all information regarding fees and expenditure on their websites latest by November 30 2016. Most schools have failed to adhere to the earlier order of the board.

Board had earlier issued an advisory to all its affiliated schools, asking them to share the fee structure along with details of all the facilities they provide by or before October 31. However, 90% schools as per sources in the state failed to abide.

The new order issued by the board, a copy of which is with TOI has asked the schools to upload all information on public domain latest by November 30, 2016, failing which action would be taken against defaulting schools.

Actions shall include cancellation of affiliation and barring such schools from getting affiliation in future. Under mandatory disclosure, the CBSE has asked for an expansive list which includes infrastructural details of the school including the plot size, the built up area, and the size of the playground.

Furthermore, schools are also asked about the number of buildings, details of the trust that owns them or their subsequent management. Besides, the most important revelations in the list include fee structure, salary of teachers with mode of payment, details of sexual harassment committee and personnel information including details of school management, teaching and non-teaching staff.

"All the schools need to comply with the latest orders and the deadline stands extended till November, 30 for mandatory disclosures," reads the official letter of CBSE issued to all schools in the state

No bus duty for teachers

Abhishek Choudhari, CBSE to schools: No bus duty for teachers, Nov 02 2016 : The Times of India

Nagpur:

The Central Board of Secondary Education has asked affiliated schools to limit teachers' duty within the classroom and employ “separate trained staff “ for activities like bus route supervision and canteen duty .

“For activities of ministerial nature, transport or canteen and other related tasks, separate trained staff may be deployed by school,“ an order by the central board ruled. According to the new rules, teachers can now reject such “administrative“ assignments.

In Nagpur, where teachers supervise bus routes to ensure students' safety, a private school principal told TOI that institutions appoint `route in-charge' keeping in view the safety of the school students throughout the journey . “Almost always the teacher's stop is either the last, or second last on the route. The bus contractor also puts a female attendant in most buses,“ the principal said.

Every bus has at least one and maximum four teachers aboard.“The regional transport office allows only up to four teachers in the bus as passengers, as the transport vehicle is primarily for stu dents and gets a heavy road tax subsidy . So basically these teachers are just travelling back home but we design the route in such a way that the supervisor teacher gets off at the last stop,“ another principal said.

A principal said supervising kids during break time is essential to avoid untoward incidents. “Kids can get into a fight and with no teacher watching over things can go out of hand fast. Lot of schools balance the workload by cutting down on the teaching hours for such teachers, so frankly no one can complain,“ a teacher said.

‘No sale of books, uniforms in schools’

Manash Gohain, No sale of books, uniforms in schools: CBSE, April 21, 2017: The Times of India

The Central Board of Secondary Education has asked affiliated schools across the country to shut down shops selling textbooks, stationery, schoolbags, uniforms, shoes and similar articles within their premises.

The board asked schools on Thursday to strictly comply with its affiliation byelaws and “not indulge in commercial activities“. This includes sales through “selected vendors“.

The directive comes on the heels of the board's effort to make schools follow NCERT textbooks and creation of an online link for scho ols to raise demand for these books in February this year.

The circular issued by CBSE on “commercial activities“ in schools said the board had received complaints from parents and other stakeholders on schools “indulging in commercial activities by way of selling of books and uniforms etc within the school premises or through selec ted vendors“ despite being asked not to do so.

“There is a nexus of profiteering. But our affiliation byelaws are clear that schools are a community service and not commercial entities. It is mandatory for schools to adhere to the provisions,“ said R K Chaturvedi, chairperson, CBSE. The circular asked school managements to strict ly comply with its directive.

The board cited “rule 19.1 (ii) of CBSE affiliation byelaws“ which mandates that managements shall ensure that the school is run as a community service and not as a business and that commercialisation will not take place in the school in any shape whatsoever.

CBSE said it had taken a “serious view“ of violations of this rule. “Schools are directed to desist from the unhealthy practice of coercing parents to buy textbooks... from within the premises or from selected vendors only .“

The board also reiterated that all affiliated schools are “required to follow direc tions given in its circular dated April 12, 2016, regarding use of NCERTCBSE textbooks. Often the board receives reports and com plaints regarding pressure exercised by schools on children and their parents to buy textbooks other than NCERTCBSE.“

Electricity connections

2017

Over 37% of schools in India have no electricity, August 4, 2017: The Times of India

Govt: All Delhi Schools Have Power Supply

In an indicator of the state of infrastructure in the country's institutions, the Centre told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday that over 37% of schools did not have electricity connections till March 2017.

Only 62.81% schools in the country have electricity connections, the government's report said. Jharkhand is at the bottom of the list, with just 19% of schools in the state having access to electricity . The national capital, along with Chandigarh, Dadar and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep and Puducherry top the list with all schools having electricity connection. Some of the states with poor access to electricity are Assam (25%) and Meghalaya (28.54%).

Others in the list include Bihar (37.78%), Madhya Pradesh (28.80%), Manipur (39.27%), Odisha (33.03%) and Tripura (29.77%).

State minister for HRD Upendra Kushwaha, in written response to a question at the Rajya Sabha, stated that the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) annually collects the information on various educational indicators, including infrastructural facilities in schools through the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE).

Kushwaha said that the Centre supported state governments and Union Territory administrations for creation and augmentation of infrastructure facilities, including electrification in government elementary and secondary schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan programmes.

Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, 1,87,248 elementary schools have been provided internal electrification up to 2016-17 and under RMSA, electricity have been provided in 12,930 secondary schools so far.

Fees

Govt can regulate fee hike by pvt schools: HC

The Times of India, Jan 20 2016

Abhinav Garg

HC: Can't Engage In Profiteering Of Education

Govt can regulate fee hike by pvt schools

In a landmark verdict, the Delhi high court put an end to what it called “profiteering and commercialisation of education“ and empowered the state government to regulate fee hike by private schools. A day after it asked the AAP government to “set its house in order“ and improve its schools, the court ruled that fee hike by private unaided schools, who got DDA land at concessional rates, requires prior sanction from the Delhi government's education department. The order is expected to curb arbitrary fee hike.

“It is clear that schools cannot indulge in profiteering and commercialisation of school education... Quantum of fees to be charged by unaided schools is subject to regulation by DoE under Delhi Schools Education Act and it is competent to interfere if hike in fee by a particular school is found to be excessive and perceived as indulging in profiteering,“ a bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath held.

The court further ordered DoE to ensure compliance. It also directed DDA to take action against those private schools which violate the embargo on fee hike in the letter of allotment of land.

The judgement came on a PIL filed by advocate Khagesh Jha for an NGO, Justice For All, which urged the court to intervene and ensure that recognised private unaided schools situated on land allotted by DDA adhere to specified norms and take prior sanction of DoE before hiking their fees.

Action Committee for Unaided Recognised Private Schools, an umbrella body of school associations in Delhi, has decided to “immediately move the Supreme Court“ against the HC verdict.

“This is contrary to the earlier judgment of the Supreme Court in the TMA Pai case in which complete autonomy was granted to private schools with regard to fee structure.This cannot bypass the SC judgment. We have no alternative but to immediately move the matter to the SC,“ said SK Bhattacharya, president, Action Committee.

RC Jain of Delhi State Public School Management Association pointed out that school fees are decided by school management committees, which include nominees of DoE.

Sanskriti admission deadline extended

The Delhi government's deadline of January 22 for nursery admission forms was on Tuesday extended till this month end for Sanskriti School by the Supreme Court. It also decided to set up a three-judge bench to hear the matter.

The Centre and the school administration have assailed in the apex court the decision of the Delhi high court setting aside the 60% quota in the school for the children of group-A government officials who are in the highest class of government servants.

They have also sought an interim order allowing the institution to continue with the admission process under the old scheme till the matter is finally decided by the court.

‘Govts shouldn't mess with private school fees’

GURCHARAN DAS, Why govts shouldn't mess with private school fees, August 6, 2017: The Times of India

Imagine you are a young, idealistic person and you start a private school. You hire inspired teachers like yourself. The school does well and gets a nice a new law, the Right to Education reputation. Then a new law, the Right to Education Act (RTE) comes in 2010. It mandates parity with teacher salaries in government schools. You are forced to triple your teachers' salaries to Rs 25,000 per month. Even Doon School has to raise its salaries. The law also insists that 25% of your students must come from poor families. Although the government is expected to cover fees of the poor, it pays only a partial amount or none at all.Fees of the 75% students rise steeply to cover the costs of both factors. Soon, teacher salaries rise again to Rs 35,000 as mandated by the pay commission. Again, you have to raise fees.

Parents are angry now with constantly rising fees and `fee control' becomes a political issue. The government steps in with a new law to control student fees. Gujarat, for example, caps the fee at Rs 1,250 per month for primary and Rs 2,300 for high schools. Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab also have fee caps and Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are considering one. Your school's survival is threatened because fees will not cover your costs. You have three choices. You can either bribe the school inspector, who is happy to show you how to fudge your accounts; or you can severely cut back on the quality of your school programmes; or you close down. Ironically , you had supported the RTE law, which raised teacher salaries and gave the poor a chance for a good education. Since you are an honest person and won't compromise on quality , you are forced to close down your school.

Parents are devastated. The widespread clamour for fee control results in the closure of good schools. As a parent, your choice now is to send your child to a government school or an inferior private school. Most parents won't opt for a government school -although it offers free tuition, textbooks, uniforms, school bags, meals -because teachers are frequently absent or are not teaching. This is why even children of the poor have been abandoning government schools. Between 2011-15, enrolment in government schools fell by 1.1 crore and rose in private schools by 1.6 crore, as per government's DISE (District Information System for Education) data.

Capping fees is a form of price control, which used to be a ubiquitous feature of our socialist days under Nehru and Indira Gandhi. It only created huge shortages and a black economy . The Soviet Union also collapsed partly because of price controls. But we have come a long way since then. Hence, it is curious that this damaging idea has become a political issue. Only 18% of private schools charge fees higher than Rs 1,000 per month and 3.6% charge more than Rs 2,500 a month. So, where are the votes? Narendra Modi knows this and has privately expressed his reservations against fee caps. He realises that there is vigorous competition between private schools, especially in cities, and this has kept private schools fees low -the national median fee today is only Rs 417 per month. You don't need fee control because competition keeps the prices low. Moreover, state governments spend two to three times per child in state schools than the fee cap.

What then is the answer? It lies in the SelfFinanced Independent Schools Act 2017 of Andhra Pradesh, which encourages private schools to open, gives them freedom of admission and fees, and removes corruption from board affiliation. To the Andhra model, we should add a requirement for extensive disclosure on each school's website -giving all fees, staff qualifications, details of infrastructure, strengths and weaknesses -everything that a parent wants to know before selecting a school. With competition, fee control becomes unnecessary .

Private schools have played a vital role in keeping India afloat in the past seventy years. Their alumni have filled the top ranks of professions, civil services and business. Their leadership has made India a world class software power. The government should focus on improving government schools rather than messing with the fees of private schools. As citizens, we should drop this sinister demand for fee control. Instead, let us sing along with Nat King Cole, who expresses nicely our attitude to private schools: `Sometimes I love you, sometimes I hate you. But when I hate you, it's because I love you'.

Fee hike: Govt. approval needed—SC

Unaided pvt schools need Upholds govt nod for fee hike: SC, Jan 24, 2017: The Times of India

Private unaided schools that were granted subsidised land by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) in the national capital would not be able to hike fees without approval from the government, the Supreme Court said.

A bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justices N V Ramana and D Y Chandrachud refused to interfere with the order of the Delhi high court which had in January last year held that the schools were bound to seek approval from the directora te of education (DoE) before increasing fees.

The high court had held that schools granted land at cheaper rates by DDA could not indulge in profiteering and commercialisation of education by increasing fees on their own and directed that approval from the directorate of education was a must before taking such a decision. “Quantum of fees to be charged by unaided schools is subject to regulation by DoE... under the Delhi School Education Act, 1973, and it is competent to interfere if the fee hike by a school is found to be excessive and perceived as indulging in profiteering,“ the court had said. The HC had passed the order on a petition filed by an NGO, Justice for All, which contended there were close to 400 private-unaided schools which had been allotted government land in the city. The list includes Modern School (Barakhambha), DPS (RK Puram), Air Force Bal Bharti School (Lodhi Road), Amity International School (Saket), Sanskriti School (Chanakyapuri), Mirambika Free Progress School (Sri Aurobindo Ashram), Convent of Jesus and Mary (Bangla Sahib Marg), Ryan International School (Mayur Vihar) and Ahlcon International School (Patparganj).

The fees of high end schools

2017

See graphic.

The fees of high end schools in India in 2017; The Times of India, April 15, 2017

Laboratories

75% of schools lack decent science labs Subodh.Varma@timesgroup.com

School laboratories: India

The Times of India Aug 19 2014

More than three quarters of schools in the country do not have fully equipped science laboratories for students in class 11 and 12, a survey of 2.4 lakh secondary and senior secondary schools has found. For classes 9 and 10, where an integrated science module is taught to students, over 58% schools don't have the requisite lab.

“This is an atrocious state of affairs,“ says a sad Professor Yashpal, scientist and former chairman of the UGC who has been one of India's most well-known science communicators. “Everybody knows the importance of labs in science teaching. But learning science has been reduced to mugging up things,“ he said.

The shocking state of science teaching at school level contrasts with the high profile science education and research institutions at the top like IITs, IISc and others. The survey was carried out under the Unified District Information System on Education and data analysed by Delhibased National University for Educational Administration and Planning. The report was released recently .

In several states the situation is much worse than what the national average indicates. In Karnataka, just 6% of schools have fully equipped labs for senior students while in Andhra, the share is a mere 13%. Kerala and Tamil Nadu have a better share -34% and 38%, respectively. In Assam, just 4% schools have labs while in Bengal the share of such schools is only 6%. In smaller states and union territories like Delhi, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Goa and even Manipur, the situation is relatively better.

Perhaps this dire situation is there because there are no science students? Although this in itself would be a matter of serious worry , data in the same report shows that over 5.4 million students study science. That's more than one-third of students covered in the survey . Note that these students are spread over all schools.In fact, 43% of schools offer science to senior students, as stated in the report.

Policies, reforms

No-detention policy fails

The Times of India, Jun 19 2016

For those who grew up in In dia jumping hoop after hoop from kindergarten to Class XII, school seems unimaginable without the fearsome final exam which determined whether you went ahead or not. Now, a few years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act ended the passfail system until Class VIII, many states say that students are failing in large numbers and learning levels have plummeted. In Delhi, for instance, the proportion of students repeating Class IX rose from 2.8% in 2010 to 13.4% in 2014.

By eliminating the final exam, “the last modicum of accountability in government schools has been taken away ,“ says Atishi Marlena, adviser to Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia. Students can coast from class to class without being able to achieve basic levels of reading, writing and comprehension, say those who oppose no-detention.

Now, policymakers seem to think that the no-detention policy of the RTE Act is failing students, weakening teachers and misguiding parents. “We heard out people from across the spectrum, and all the secretaries were unanimous in their view that the child and the teacher both lose out,“ says former civil servant Shailaja Chandra, a member of the TSR Subramanian committee set up by the HRD ministry to examine an education overhaul. The committee has recommended scrapping the no-detention policy after Class V.

In 2012, a Central Advisory Board of Education sub-committee, headed by Geeta Bhukkal, then education minister of Haryana, had said that the policy might work if schools had greater resources and all-round motivation, but that for now, no-detention was difficult to implement.

The no-detention policy , though, is not the woolly-headed and kind-hearted intervention it is now being made out to be. No detention emphatically does not mean the end of regular testing.It is meant to go along with a system of continuing and comprehensive evaluation (CCE), which lets a teacher evaluate a child's learning levels, and regroup those who need remedial help in certain subjects.

Exams, after all, are not elim ination exercises meant to demoralise a child they are meant to gauge and improve learning.“No other place, the US, Europe or any other place that India aspires to be, wastes public money by making a child waste a year because she needs help in a certain area,“ says Krishna Kumar, educationist and one of the architects of the RTE Act.

The colonial idea of a strictly controlled classroom, and a final exam that passes or fails a student, may be considered obsolete around the world but it still shapes the common Indian view of schooling. But while many believe that failure is a goad to learning, there is zero empirical evidence that detention improves academic performance. It does, however, extract psychological costs from a student. Even the Bhukkal committee found that the pass percentage in the Class X exams improved after the system, and dropouts, especially among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, had considerably decreased. The Subramanian committee report also admits that the no-detention policy has been “empirically validated“, keeping children in school for those eight years and also raising pass percentages across boards.

“The problem is not the policy , it is the way it has been communicated,“ says Vimala Ramachandran, former NUEPA professor. “In our surveys, we found it had become a licence not to do any assessment at all. Teachers mechanically filled out forms as though it was another administrative task, without doing the activities required to evaluate the child's capabilities,“ she says. While upper-end private schools can easily incorporate this, many government schools are challenged, she says. Both teachers and administrators are bewildered by these new demands, and the system tends towards laxity , rather than creativity . “In large classrooms, where the teachers are themselves preoccupied, it has been difficult for them to pursue the child's development, or for there to be outside monitoring of each child's progress,“ says Chandra.

But scrapping no-detention is the equivalent of wilfully breaking the RTE-conceived schooling system, and then declaring it broken, say others. “The no-detention policy cannot be seen in isolation, but in the context of the neglect of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and RTE goals,“ says Kumar.

Playgrounds

STATOISTICS - State of Play

The Times of India Jul 29 2014

The fact that today's urban children have little playing space where they live is well known. That makes adequate playgrounds in schools even more important. This is not just to improve India's performance in sports, but because studies have shown that school-level games play an important role in a child's personality development by teaching them to cooperate, plan, negotiate and so on. But data analysed by TOI shows that there are many states, including Bihar and Orissa, where seven out of ten primary schools don't have playgrounds. Data from the Unified District Information System on Education (U-DISE) suggests that access to playgrounds improves somewhat in secondary schools.

Private schools, unaided

Terminating services of teachers

The Times of India, April 17, 2016

A driver who was sacked by a private school in 2003 has secured a judgment from the Supreme Court forbidding recognised schools in Delhi from dismissing any employee, including teachers, without "prior approval" of the director of education.

In its judgment on April 13, SC upheld a provision in the Delhi School Education Act 1973 that requires all recognised schools to obtain the government's approval before sacking an employee. The section — 8(2) of the DSEA 1973 — had been struck down by the Delhi high court in July 2005. Terming the 2005 decision "bad in law", the apex court observed, "The intent of the legislature while enacting the same (Section 8(2)) was to provide security of tenure to employees of schools and to regulate the terms and conditions of their employment." Activists said the judgment will check "victimisation" of teachers who dare to raise their voice against arbitrary and illegal decisions of private school managements.

The SC ruling is a shot in the arm for teachers such as Asha Rani, Payal Singh (name changed on request), Dinesh Chand Sharma and their colleagues. According to Asha Rani, 43, she was suspended from a school in Sector 15, Rohini, and two of her colleagues were fired for demanding full salary and benefits.

"Our salaries were being transferred to our accounts but the management took signed, blank cheques from us and withdrew the money. Our actual salaries were being paid in cash," alleges Asha Rani. About 60 teachers had filed a cheating case in 2010. Now, most have inquiries against them. "Other Rohini schools sacked teachers too or they quit under pressure. With this judgment, schools will have to first take permission from the government."

The status of school education in India

Rural schools: 2009-14

The Times of India

Rural schooling in India: Some facts

Jan 14 2015

Rural schools high on enrolment, but low on learning levels: Report

Akshaya Mukul

Pratham's 10th Annual Status of Education Report -the country's biggest private audit of elementary education in rural India -released Tuesday has a similar story as in previous years: rising enrolment, poor learning levels in reading, mathematics and English and growth in number of private schools. ASER also says improvement in school facilities -pupil teacher ratios, playgrounds, kitchen sheds, drinking water facilities, toilets -continues. HRD ministry is going to strongly dispute ASER's claims on falling learning outcomes since government's own report gives a different picture.

With Pratham gaining worldwide presence -from Pakistan to Africa -the ceremony , again like in the past, was a glittering event attended by industrialists, entrepreneurs and even chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian. Report for 2014 done after survey of 16,497 villages, 5.7 lakh children in over 3.4 lakh households across 577 districts says that for the sixth year in a row enrolment levels are 96% or higher for the age group of 6 to 14.

Rural schools, 2014-16

Pratham audit paints mixed pic of rural education, Jan 19, 2017: The Times of India

A private audit of school education in rural India paints a mixed picture of hits and misses increase in enrolment, no increase in private school enrolment, improvement in reading ability and arithmetic, but not so much in reading English.

After a gap of a year, Pratham's 11th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) was unveiled on Wednesday in the presence of Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia and chief economic adviser Arvind Subramaniam. The survey was carried out in 17,473 villages, covering 3,50,232 households. Children's attendance shows no major change since 2014. Also, the proportion of small schools in the government primary school sector continues to grow.

The report that largely looks at enrolment pattern and learning abilities highlights that at the all India level, enrolment in the age group of 614 has marginally increased from 96.7% in 2014 to 96.9% in 2016. Similar increase can be noticed in the enrolment for the age-group of 15-16 from 83.4% in 2014 to 84.7% in 2016.

In states like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and UP, the fraction of out-of-school children has increased between 2014 and 2016. In MP, it has been the highest from 3.4% to 4.4%. In three states, the proportion of out-of-school girls is higher than 8%. This includes Rajasthan (9.7%), UP (9.9%) and MP (8.5%).

There has been no increase in enrolment in private schools in the last two years.Enrolment is almost unchanged at 30.8% in 2014 to 30.5% in 2016. Gender gap in private schools has decreased slightly from 7.6 percentage points to 6.9 percentage points.

As for learning ability , na tionally the proportion of children in Class III who could read at least Class I text has gone up slightly from 40.2% in 2014 to 42.5% in 2016. Overall, reading levels in Class V are almost the same year on year from 2011 to 2016. However, the proportion of children in Class V who could read a Class II-level text improved by more than five percentage points from 2014 to 2016 in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tripura, Nagaland and Rajasthan.

However, in Class VIII, reading level has shown slight decline since 2014, from 74.1% to 73.1%. Except for Manipur, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, reading level does not show much improvement.

In 2014, nationally 25.4% of Class III children could do a two-digit subtraction which has risen slightly to 27.7% in 2016, mainly in government schools. However, in Class V , the arithmetic levels of children measured by their ability to do simple division remained almost the same at 26%.But among Class VIII students, the ability to do division has continued to drop, a trend that began in 2010.

Ability to read English has slightly improved in Class III but relatively unchanged in Class V . In 2016, 32% children in Class III could read simple words as compared to 28.5% in 2009. Worrisome is the gradual decline in upper primary. In 2009, 60.2% in Class VIII could read simple sentences in English; in 2014, this was 46.7% and in 2016, it has declined to 45.2%.

The students of Schools

The language, maths, science skills of Class VIII students

UP tops in survey of Class VIII kids

NCERT Study Covering 24 States Tests Language, Maths, Science Skills

Akshaya Mukul TNN

The Times of India 2013/07/13

New Delhi: The NCERT’s comprehensive survey of learning achievements of class VIII students across 24 states — comprising more than 300 districts and over 8,000 schools — reveals that Uttar Pradesh is a clear winner.

The other highlight is that in Kerala, girls outperform boys in most subjects.

However, there is a huge gap between UP students who are in the 90th percentile and those in the 10th percentile. For instance, in mathematics, 210 out of 500 is the score of students in the 10th percentile, whereas, 364 is the score of students in the 90th percentile — a gap of 154 marks. In reading comprehension, the difference — called the inter quartile range — is 141 marks. In science, the difference goes up to 169 as score of students in the 10th percentile is 186 and in the 90th percentile is 355. In social science, the range is astounding — 171 marks between the 90th percentile and the 10th percentile.

The survey that tested students in language, mathematics, science and social science skills using Item Response Theory, the most widely used system to map learning achievements, found highly variable range between students in the 90th and the 10th percentile in other states as well. The survey also notes that unlike Pratham’s Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER), the NCERT survey covers government and government-aided schools in rural and urban areas, gives grade-specific tests, uses sufficient length of test covering wide range of measurement points in content area as well as multiple test booklets.

While the NCERT survey tests Class III, IV and VIII students in different subjects, ASER tests them in reading, writing and arithmetic skills. While ASER uses one test booklet in each area, NCERT uses three questionnaires for pupil, teacher and school.

Reading comprehension

Below average states

In reading comprehension, the average score of Andaman & Nicobar islands, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu is significantly below that of the group average of 250.

Average states

The difference between average score in Delhi, Dadra Nagar Haveli, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and that of the group average of 250 is not very significant.

Performance of girls and boys

When it comes to reading, no significant gap between the average performance of girls and boys could be found in AP, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan. In Delhi, Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Punjab, the average performance of girls is better than boys.

Bihar is the only state where boys outperformed girls.

Rural and urban students

No significant difference could be found in the performance of rural and urban students in AP, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, MP, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Delhi is the only state where performance of rural students is higher than urban students.

REPORT CARD

Delhi is the only state where performance of rural students is higher than urban students. In most other states, urban students do better than rural ones, a nationwide survey finds

Kerala girls outperform boys in most subjects

The survey tested students in language, mathematics, science and social science skills

Why do some children do better at studies? NCERT’s 2015 survey

The good habits of students who do well at studies; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, December 10, 2015

The Times of India, December 10, 2015

Games & siblings key to do better in maths: NCERT

Seetha Lakshmi

Children who play games every day and those with siblings score better in mathematics, but watching television ruins their scores, the NCERT National Achievement Survey has revealed. While having more siblings did little to improve children's reading skills, it did improve maths marks: If those with over four siblings scored an average of 32.9%, grades fell for children with just one sibling. The survey also found that access to more books at home improved reading ability -children with 25 or more books scored 50.8%, while children with no books at home scored 42.6%. But books did little for children to score more in maths (a mere 2.5% improvement), while children who read more did marginally well in science and social science, pointed out S Anand, chief data scientist at Gramener, a data visualisation and analytics company which analysed the data for NCERT.

The survey measured children's learning achievement in language, mathematics, science and social science. It analysed data collected from 6,722 schools (government and government aided), 24,486 teachers and 1,88,647 students through tests and questionnaires from 33 states and Union territories. The objective was to understand what children in schools know and can do at different stages of elementary education.

2015: Std X students below par in English, maths

The Times of India Jan 07 2016

Akshaya Mukul

Big Gap Between Govt And Private School Kids, Finds Study

The first ever survey of learning achievement of class X students has shown that majority of the statesUnion Territories are performing below the overall average score in all subjects. NCERT conducted the survey on 2.77 lakh students from 7,216 schools across 33 statesUTs.

NCERT is also putting in place a system whereby feedback from surveys will be given to the states, examination boards and schools. It has also prepared a detailed analysis of its survey vis-àvis the much touted Pratham's Annual Status of Edu cation Report, the country's first private audit of school education in rural India.

The NCERT survey result shows that only 41% of the students were able to answer correctly in English; in mathematics, only 40% of the students made the cut. In science, 43% of them were able to come up with the right answers, while 47% of them knew the answers in social science. The best result was in Indian languages where 53% of the students were able to give correct answers.

The survey also found there were significant differences in scores of students from government and government-aided schools and private schools. Students of private managed schools did the best with average score of 277 out of 500, whereas government school students scored 236 and those going to government-aided schools got 246.

In English, there is signifi cant difference in the performance of rural and urban students with urban students performing better in Haryana, Meghalaya, Nagaland and J&K. A similar trend was seen in case of mathematics.In science, rural students performed better than urban ones in states like Assam, Kerala and West Bengal. Rural students of Kerala performed better than urban ones in social science. NCERT has ascribed overall low scores to lack of conceptual clarity and understanding. While comparing its National Achievement Survey with Pratham's ASER, NCERT has said that while it conducts class specific assessment, ASER assesses basic ability.

Girls as good as boys in maths: NCERT survey

The Times of India, Mar 18 2016

Manash Gohain

The notion that girls are not good with numbers and science is just a myth, if data from a nationwide survey of more than 2.7 lakh students is any indicator.The survey conducted on Class X students showed girls performed on an equal footing with boys in mathematics, science and social sciences. The study, however, upheld another common belief-that girls have better language skills. Girls outperformed boys in English and other lan guages in the survey conducted in 2015 by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) in 7,216 schools following different boards across 33 states and Union territories.

The study also highlighted rampant under-performance among students in rural settings, those studying in govern ment schools and hailing from underprivileged backgrounds such as Dalits and tribals.

Another disturbing trend was the poor showing in science and maths by students in a majority of states. Scores in science were below the national average in 24 states. In maths, the survey showed 21 states falling below the average. In general, students struggled the most in subjects that involved numerical problems and practicals.

The study also showed that a few states were far ahead of the rest. In mathematics, only four states and UTs performed way above the national average while students from 21 states and UTs were assessed to be significantly below the average.In science, as many as 24 states and UTs were below the national average even while a large variation was found in scores within states.

“The survey revealed that the majority of the states and UTs are performing below the overall average score in all subject areas... Low achievement is largely an outcome of lack of conceptual clarity and understanding,“ says the report.

On average, just 41% of the questions on English were answered correctly . In mathematics, the percentage was even less (40%). It was slightly better for science (43%) and social sciences (47%). It was only in modern Indian languages (MIL) that students on average managed to answer more than half the questions correctly (53.5%).

Shockingly , more than one-third of the students scored between 0 to 35%. Only 2% of them could score 75% and above in science and social studies while none could score as much in English and mathematics.

Among states, Karnataka performed the best, with students achieving scores significantly higher than the national average in four of the five subjects assessed. In English, the north-eastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Sikkim were among the seven best performers.

The report also summarised the performances of various central and state Boards -in subjects as well as range of correct answers.In English, the top three boards were ICSE, CBSE and Nagaland board while in mathematics, ICSE, CBSE and Odisha board had the highest scores.

In science and social science, too, ICSE students performed better than the rest. In MIL, West Bengal board students outperformed the rest.

Pupils struggle most in maths and science

The Times of India, Mar 18 2016

State of education; girls and boys; rural and urban; SC, ST, OBC, others; Government, aided and private schools; Graphic courtesy: The Times of India, Mar 18 2016