Despite all efforts being made from Government to improve primary and secondary school education system in the State, Student-Teacher ratio (STR) in schools has remained abysmally low at 22.4 per cent in the State in last year. The much awaited yearly Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), collected and compiled by Pratham Education Foundation, claims that the State has also shown utter stagnancy as far as number of construction of new playgrounds in schools after 2014.
The largest annual household survey in rural India that focuses on the status of children’s schooling and basic learning, ASER-2016 report has shown marginal improvement in STR in 2016 in comparison to 2014 when it was merely 21.9 per cent. However, keeping national STR at 53 percent, which is also just little over half of what should be, a 22.4 percent STR in State paints a dreadful picture.
Though the report also draws perfectly positive picture in a number of areas in by 2016 comparison to 2014, it also has exposed areas where the State mechanism has simply failed to deliver.
ASER Associate (Jharkhand) Pankaj Pandey said while explaining details of report being webcast from Delhi on Wednesday that the State couldn’t construct any new playground in last two years. “There were 33.3 percent schools having a playground in 2014, and there are 33.3 percent schools having playground in 2016. Keeping national level data of 64.5 percent in latest survey on this criterion in mind, we are lagging far behind in Jharkhand,” said Pandey.
As far as quality of education being given in schools is concerned, the Jharkhand data has shown, though little, but upside movement. The report shows that the percentage of students being able to do simple division of Mathematics in class-V has improved to 23.5 from 21.3 in 2014, students being able to do addition and subtraction in class-IV have inched to 33.8 percent from 32.1 in 2014, and those being able to do same in class-II have increased to 12.54 percent from 8.8 in 2014.
One encouraging fact found in ASER-2016 for the State where it has appeared leading in across the country is that percentage of students getting enrolled in government schools in age-group of 11-14 years has gone to 76.8 in 2016 in comparison to 65.5 nationwide. In the age-group of 6-14 years also, the State has been found leading the nation with 78 percent children getting enrolled in government schools in comparison to 65.4 percent of national figure. At the same time, children of 5 years of age going to Anganbadi have also increased to 27.5 percent in 2016 in comparison to 26 percent in 2014. This is another area where the State has beaten national figure of 22.5 percent.
It is also little surprising that the State which is suffering badly in providing pure drinking water to citizens has managed, at least as per ASER-2016, to provide drinking water to school above national average. As per survey report, 81.5 percent of the schools in State have been found having access to drinking water in comparison to 74.1 percent nationally. Swachh Bharat campaign also appears leaving impact on schools in terms of usable toilets for girls, as the data shows that 61.4 percent of total toilets for girls in schools in the State have been found usable in comparison to 48 percent in 2014.