A survey conducted by NCERT has revealed that Tamil Nadu has the highest number of Class III students who don’t have basic numeracy skills in India.
29% of TN’s Class III students couldn’t perform most of the basic grade-level tasks, which is against the national average of 11%. The tasks include number identification and discrimination, division, multiplication, and fractions as well as identifying patterns comprising numbers and shapes, dates and months in a calendar.
Tamil Nadu is followed by states that include Jammu & Kashmir (28%), Assam (18%), Gujarat (18%), and Chattisgarh (18%) with its neighbour states Andra Pradesh (9%), Karnataka (8%), and Kerala (7%) being ahead of it.
The figures are certainly a disgrace for TN which boasts a steller Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) of 51.4 against the national average of 27.1. The survey reveals that only 48% of students were able to identify calendar metrics and only 34% could identify clock time. The national average for the same is 62% and 52% respectively.
The state’s performance for the language category was also abysmally poor with almost 48% of students lacking basic knowledge and skills in Tamil and 43% in English.
The findings for literacy were based on phonological awareness, decoding letters, words, and non-words, reading fluency, and comprehension.
Only 46% of students from the state were able to read 80-100 letters correctly and fluently in Tamil, while only 47% of the students could read about 80% of the words correctly and fluently in English.
Tamil Nadu school officials’ stand
About four primary school teachers to whom TNIE spoke stated that the survey report shows the correct picture citing that the pandemic had taken a serious toll on the learning outcomes of the primary students.
However, school education department officials are not ready to accept the survey report.
A total of 2,937 Class III students from 336 schools, including state and central government-aided as well as private and recognised schools, participated in the survey in TN.
The survey was organised under the Ministry of Education’s NIPUN Bharat scheme that aims to have all Class III children with basic literacy and numeracy skills by 2026-27.
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