60 % of Class 3 students in Telangana cannot read Class 1 Telugu text: ASER

60 % of Class 3 students in Telangana cannot read Class 1 Telugu text: ASER NALGONDA: The Annual Status of Education Report(ASER) 2016 for rural areas in India released on Wednesday paints a grim picture of the state of primary school education in Telagana. While the report indicates that arithmetic learning in the state’s government schools have improved since 2014, reading

comprehension remains poor, with a staggering 60 per cent of Class 3 students unable to read a Class 1-level Telugu text.

Further, while 42.2 per cent of Class 3 students can perform subtraction, a similar percentage of students cannot pronounce simple words in English. However, the report states that Class 8 students perform better at both language and arithmetic compared to Class 5 students.

The report shows that the Telugu reading ability of Class 5 government school students has decreased when compared to 2014, with only 40 per cent of Class 5 government school students being able to read a Class 2-level text in 2016, against 53.7 per cent in 2014.  

Private schools, however, appear to have shown an increase in Telugu reading ability from 55.7 per cent in 2014 to 59.1 per cent in 2016. But taken together, ability of Class 5 school students in government and private schools to read a Class 2 text fell from 54.5 per cent to 47.1 per cent. A similar fall has been reported in the Telugu reading ability of Class 8 students. The number of Class 8 students who can read a Class 2 Telugu text fell from 73.9 per cent in 2014 to 71.7 per cent.

Students also have a long way to go when it comes to English comprehension, with 18.9 per cent of Class 2 students unable to read the English alphabet and some 32 per cent of Class 8 students unable to read easy sentences in English.

When it comes to ability of students to perform division, both government and private schools in Telangana appear to have failed in improving quality of arithmetic education. The percentage of Class 5 government school children who can perform division fell from 29.5 per cent in 2014 to 26 per cent in 2016. The figure fell from 39.7 per cent to 37.6 per cent in private schools. Overall in Telangana, only 30.4 per cent of all Class 5 students can perform simple division of a three digit number by a single digit.

The scenario is brighter when it comes to Class 8 students. The number of Class 8 government school who can perform division has increased from 43.7 per cent in 2014 to 51.4 per cent in 2016.

Overall, in government and private schools 54.9 per cent of Class 8 students could perform division in 2016 as compared to 44.3 per cent in 2014.  The number of Class 3 government school students able to perform subtraction went from 25.6 per cent in 2014 to 30.7 per cent in 2016.