The annual State of Jan. 14: The annual State of Education Report 2010, has revealed a decline in children’s ability to do simple mathematics in rural India, with only 35.9 per cent in Class V able to solve easy division problems last year as against 38 per cent in 2009.
Released by the Vice-President, Mr Hamid Ansari, on Friday, the report has also pointed out that as against 69.3 per cent in 2009, only 65.8 per cent of Class I students could recognise numbers from 1 to 9 in 2010, a decline of about four per cent.
The report further revealed that only 36.5 per cent of the
children in Class III could solve two digit subtraction problems in the survey carried out last year as against 39 per cent a year before.
The report praised Punjab, Kerala and Bihar for bucking the national trend.
As against 43.5 per cent of students of class V in 2008, more than 69 per cent could do divisions in 2010, it said and talked about other positive trends at the elementary level there.
The report found that 96.5 per cent of children in 6 to 14 age group in rural India are enrolled in schools, of whom 71.1 per cent are enrolled in government schools and 24.3 in private schools.
Making a special reference to Bihar, the report said it
has made good progress in the enrollment figure where the percentage of out of school girls and boys in all age groups has been declining steadily since 2005.
“In 2006, 12.3 per cent of boys and 17.6 per cent of girls were out of schools “in 11-14 age group. By 2010, these number had declined to 4.4 per cent for boys and 4.6 per cent for girls,” it said. However, the percentage of out of school girls is still high in Rajasthan (12.1 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (9.7 per cent) which remained largely unchanged since last year.
For rural India as a whole, attendance showed no change between 2007-10, which remained at 73 per cent in this period.
Source: DC