All children are in school is almost achieved, which is a great achievement for all Indians. All most all schools are having a good infrastructure. Being optimistic it is good news that The Right to Compulsory Education Act came into force on 1st April 2010.Now it is our duty to check the quality of education. But how to do it? There are various ways e.g. checking at input level, checking the process or checking the output. We have choose the last one, checking the output i.e. if our children are going to school then what they are learning. In ASER we just tried to find out the learning level of our children. It is done at very basic level, it contains only reading and basic arithmetic. The tools which are used for child evaluation are equivalent to standard one and two level. Basically survey is done in rural India.
Findings are very interesting. Evaluation is done with children from the age group of 5 to 16. Regarding reading level only 41% of the age group can read standard 2 level stories across India in 2007. In 2008 also the percentage was same as 2007. But in 2009 the percentage fall marginally to 40%. This is a serious matter of concern. The picture seems more disappointing when it seems class wise reading level. In the year of 2007 it was found that more than 40% of standard five students cannot read standard two level stories. In the year of 2008 the percentage increased to 44%. It was 48% in the year of 2009. If a child who is studying at standard five and cannot read standard two level stories then it is big question mark on his or her learning level.
The level of basic arithmetic’s is also not optimistic. Only 30% of children, who belongs to the age group of 5 to 16 can solve division problem. In the year of 2008 the percentage falls down to 27%. It was 29% in 2009. Class wise data show a much clear picture about the situation. Almost 58% students from standard five cannot solve division problem. In 2008 it increased to 63%. There was a little improvement in 2009 data in comparison to 2008, the percentage decreased to 62%. These data shows that even after spending five years in school students are not able to do some simple arithmetic’s which are useful in our daily life.
The situation is very serious as Sarva Siksha Abhiyan is going to finish its term but our main objective is yet to achieve. Now Right to Compulsory Education Act is coming but the problem with the Act is that, it is concern with inputs rather than learning levels. As a citizen of India we are paying 2% education chess so it is our duty to make accountable the responsible authority to get best from our investments.
