Half of govt schoolkids flunk simple math test

Over 50 per cent of Class V students in govt schools can’t clear a simple mathematics test, about 45 per cent of them can’t even do plain addition and subtraction, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 1, 2008, 01:05:33 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Over 50 per cent of Class V students in government schools can’t clear a simple mathematics test. Of them, about 45 per cent can’t even do plain addition and subtraction.

These are some of the shocking findings of a survey on students’ learning levels in government schools across India, conducted by the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) last year.

The survey checked the learning ability of 65,000 students in 266 districts and found their performance better in languages and environment sciences, than mathematics. The average pass percentage was 60 for languages and 53 for environment sciences. In the case of mathematics, it was a grim 49.2 per cent.

The NCERT tested students on nine aspects of math — including geometry, measurement, profit and loss, average and fundamental operations. Over 50 per cent failed in questions on percentages, geometry, fractions and decimals and on highest common factor and lowest common multiple.

Students in West Bengal on an average got more than 60 per cent.

Students in Chhattisgarh and Goa students scored less than 40 per cent. In most of the northern states, students scored between 40 and 50 per cent.

Even though learning mathematics is still a matter of concern, the overall learning ability of the students has improved, with 53.65 per cent students clearing the NCERT test as compared to just 51.89 per cent in 2004.

While Himachal Pradesh recorded the maximum improvement of over 13 percentage points, its neighbours Haryana and Punjab reported a decline by four and about 0.5 per cent, respectively. Tamil Nadu went down the most -- 8.6 per cent.

The HRD Ministry blamed shortage of mathematics teachers for the poor performance of students in many states. The situation will change, ministry officials told Hindustan Times, with half of the allocation under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan being utilised to improve quality of education. "Many states have come up with innovative teaching methods and it has shown results with better learning levels as compared to 2004," an official said.

The ministry in the 11th plan will launch a new scheme for improving quality of education in government schools, the official said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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