Over 70 per cent of Class VI students in Government schools cannot read a paragraph from a textbook, a baseline assessment survey has revealed. The assessment conducted by Government school teachers using appropriate tools was aimed at revealing the level of learning of 2,01,997 children studying in 1,011 schools under the Education Department.
According to the survey, 74 per cent students could not read a paragraph from their own Hindi textbook, 46 per cent could not read a simple story of Class II competency and 8 per cent could not identify letters. Similarly, 67 per cent children could not do simple 3 digits by 1 digit division, 44 per cent children could not do 2 digits subtraction with borrowing and 5 per cent children could not recognise single digit numbers. “With only 54 per cent children of Class VI being able to read something (and just 26 per cent who can read their own textbooks), the remaining 46 per cent would require additional support to first of all learn to read and write,” an official statement said. The baseline survey has been conducted to chalk out a plan of action for “Chunauti 2018”, the AAP Government’s new education reform plan seeking to check dropout of students and improve education quality with special focus on the weakest students.