Education poor in state: Report
Ability of TS Class 3 children to read Class 2 textbook worsens in two years
Contrary to official perceptions, a ‘Financial Commission in Covid times report for 2021-26’ has revealed that the educational standards in Telangana are either poorer than the national average or have substantially deteriorated over a period of time, in terms of reading and arithmetic abilities of students.
Taking from the ASER 2018 report, it further states that compared to the national average, the percentage of the ability of the State’s Class three children to read Class 2 text or even perform basic subtraction has slid from 2016 to 2018. While in 2016, children who were able to read the text correctly from a lower grade textbook stood at 18.6 per cent in
2016, it went down to 18.1 per cent in 2018, whereas the national average rose from 25.2 per cent to
27.3 per cent during the same period.
Students who were able to do basic subtraction fell from 42.2 per cent to 34.5 per cent in
2018 in Telangana, whereas the national average rose to 28.2 per cent from 27.7 per cent.
TS and AP head of Pratham Foundation that contributes to the ASER report every year, Rambabu Pendem, said that due to lack of proper education in Telangana, the condition of school children was such that they were unable to even remember the school’s name. Capabilities of young students were being adversely hit because of improper formal education, the survey shows.
The reason for this, experts say, lies in the pedagogy system. Prof. S. Kumaresan, former UoH faculty member and president of the Mathematics Training and Talent Search Programme (MTTS) Trust, said, “The situation is not just prevalent in Telangana. In order to arrest this downslide, there is an urgent need to overhaul teaching methods and to have parents understand that the final destination is not in cracking exams, but in understanding the concepts”.
The report further states that in 2016–17, the expenditure on education (general education, technical education, and capital outlay on education, sports, art and culture) in Telangana as a percentage of GSDP was only 1.8 per cent against the national average of 2.6 per cent.