School students in Uttar Pradesh have registered the biggest improvement in learning ability over the past five years, according to a new government survey. At the same time, students from eight other states have seen their learning abilities drop

According to the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT), the learning ability of students in Uttar Pradesh schools has improved by 13.63 percentage points, from 41.45% in the baseline year (2001-02) to 56.19% in a mid-term appraisal (2007-08) -- the highest across India. The increase corroborates a jump in the number of students from the state who have cleared NCERT’s learning ability tests for mathematics, environmental sciences and languages since 2001-02.

Other states that recorded an improvement were Himachal Pradesh, with a 13.5% increase in learning levels, followed by Karnataka and Kerala.

Uttar Pradesh’s achievement is significant since Manipur recorded a 21-point fall in mean percentage, followed by Tamil Nadu (8.61), Andaman and Nicobar Islands (5.45) and Haryana (4.54).

The survey was carried out on 84,322 students and 14,810 teachers across 266 districts in 33 Indian states and union territories. Rural schools made up 79% of the survey sample. The survey was not conducted in Bihar.

Among the three subjects for which learning levels were assessed, the worst performance was recorded in mathematics while students scored highest in languages. Again, Uttar Pradesh told a different story. Here, the maximum improvement in learning levels (14.58%) was recorded in mathematics.

Officials from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, under which the department of education falls, attributed the positive change to the appointment of more maths and science teachers at government schools, under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (India’s universalisation of education programme). “Community participation and a greater number of teachers have maximum impact on the achievement of students,” the NCERT said in one of its findings.

Uttar Pradesh also did better in environment sciences where the improvement reported was 14.74%. However, in languages, Himachal Pradesh pipped Uttar Pradesh with an improvement score of 13.89%, compared to 11.57%.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service, July 2, 2008
             www.ncert.gov.in, July 2008