Bihar leads in student and teacher absenteeism in state government schools. Less than 40 per cent students and 75 per cent teachers attend classes on any given day, says a Human Resource Development ministry survey. Chetan Chauhan reports.
Bihar leads in student and teacher absenteeism in state government schools. Less than 40 per cent students and 75 per cent teachers attend classes on any given day, says a Human Resource Development ministry survey.
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But more surprisingly, educationally sound Delhi scores just 51 per cent student attendance and ranks lower than educationally backward states like Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. While teacher absenteeism is not too high - just 5 per cent - their accountability in ensuring student attendance is very low, the survey states.
Student attendance at the primary level in Bihar was 42 per cent, while in the upper-primary classes it just 37 per cent. Teacher attendance for these two categories was 76 and 75 per cent respectively.
An HRD ministry official blamed a "shortage of about 80,00 teachers in Bihar" for the state of affairs. Bihar has also been unable to meet many Sarva Siksha Abhiyan targets citing financial crunch.
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The survey in 21 states has enough pointers on why Bimaru states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Orissa are lagging behind in education. Student attendance in Rajasthan is 63 per cent, in Uttar Pradesh 57 per cent, Chattisgarh 66 per cent and Orissa 67 per cent.
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The survey in 21 states has enough pointers on why Bimaru states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Orissa are lagging behind in education. Student attendance in Rajasthan is 63 per cent, in Uttar Pradesh 57 per cent, Chattisgarh 66 per cent and Orissa 67 per cent.
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The survey throws up significant questions about the efficacy of centrally-sponsored schemes like the midday meal scheme, for which money is sanctioned to states on the basis of students enrolled and not actual attendance. The ministry expects a final report in two months with detailed analyses of the findings.
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.
