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Teachers at the state's government schools were found to be mostly involved in non-academic work, resulting in low attendance. Adding to the poor standards of teaching is a high student-teacher ratio of 122:1, three times the national average
Primary school teachers at Bihar's government schools spend less than two months a year in the classroom, according to new figures from the United Nations children's agency Unicef. The state also has three times the national average student-teacher ratio, at 122:1 as against 40:1 elsewhere in the country.
Painting an extremely grim picture of primary, secondary and higher education in the state, the white paper on Bihar's finances, recently tabled in the state assembly, said the main reason for the abysmal state of affairs was lack of a mechanism to monitor the performance of teachers.
Teachers in Bihar were found to be mostly involved in non-academic work, like government duty, which led to poor attendance. Another major factor is the huge shortage of classrooms. Against the requirement of 379,089 classrooms, in accordance with the national norm of 40 students per room, there are currently just 143,027 classrooms available -- that's a shortfall of 199,014, says the report.
"All this reflects in poor results. In grade VIII exams in 2002, 76% and 86% students received grade C or below in Mathematics and Hindi respectively," the paper points out.
Though there has been some improvement in the quality of primary education, due to the introduction of the Bihar education project, district primary education project, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and mid-day meal schemes, the government has not been able to carry out most of these central schemes.
For the last few years, the state has failed to get the second instalment of the central grant for education due to non-utilisation of funds.
Source: Business Standard, April 13, 2006
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