Primary education inches ahead

More and more children go to school but they continue to learn a fraction of what they should. Focused leadership by the government and community involvement help to raise the standards of teaching. These are some of the findings from non-government organisation Pratham’s 2010 edition of Annual Survey of Education Report. Top-down focus works up to a point, beyond that the quality of pedagogy depends on local empowerment and community involvement in supervising school conduct. With the implementation of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the proportion of children in the 6-14 age group in rural areas not attending school has declined to 3.5% in 2010 from 6.6% in 2005, the lowest ever proportion observed. That is welcome.

But unfortunately, most of these children are woefully behind on the level of learning they should attain at any standard. For instance, Pratham found only 53.4% of the children in standard V could read at the standard II level. Only 65.8% of the standard I children can recognise numbers 1-9 , only 36.5% of standard III children can do two-digit subtraction problems and only 35.9% of standard V students can do simple division. In all probability, all these children will grow into adults with impaired cognitive and processing skills. Given these statistics, it would be difficult to describe the SSA an unqualified success. Learning outcomes, along with improved enrolment numbers, should be the measure of success of any such programme. Similarly, increased outlays are no good if that money is not used effectively to obtain the desired objectives.

The situation can be quickly remedied with appropriate intervention, motivated teachers and regular monitoring — as the experience in states such as Punjab illustrates . Primary education in India cannot improve just by laying down norms. Yes, we need to lower the pupil to teacher ratio, appoint more teachers, improve attendance of students and teachers and provide better facilities at school. But real change will come about only if the teachers are dedicated to the cause of teaching the young, are well trained to educate and the local community oversees their work.