The eight fisheries schools in the State lag behind other government schools in key educational performance indictors, a study by a Thiruvananthapuram-based NGO has found.
In a comparative study of the performance of students in government schools and in the fisheries schools for the SSLC examination of 2016, the Sister Rose Memorial Education Resource Centre has found the latter lagging behind in performance indicators such as the average marks scored across subjects and the number of students scoring A+ grade. This is despite the fact that seven out of the eight fisheries schools registered 100 per cent pass in the SSLC examination.
(The data for government schools are based on a sample of 1,56,996 students.)
The study found that if one in 27 students in government schools secured A+ grades for all subjects, none of the 98 students in the fisheries schools was able to do so. While the average percentage of marks scored by the fisheries school students for Malayalam was 74.39, the corresponding figure for English was 58.78, for physics, 62.24, for chemistry, 61.22 and for Biology, 64.08. For mathematics the corresponding figure was only 48.78.
In the case of government school students, the average performance was higher; it was 79.39 per cent for Malayalam, 66.06 for English, 65.42 for physics, 62.39 for chemistry and 65.72, for biology. For mathematics, the State average score was 55.43 per cent.
In the matter of scoring A+ grade too the figures speak of a not-so-rosy situation in the fisheries schools. If 38.58 per cent of government school students scored A+ for Malayalam, the figure in the fisheries schools was 20.41. For English, the figures were 14.88 per cent and 2.04 per cent respectively. For physics, if 17.39 per cent of the government school students scored A+, the figure for the fisheries schools was 6.12 per cent. The corresponding figures for chemistry were 15.39 and 6.12 per cent and for biology, 14.49 and 5.10. For mathematics if 8.20 per cent of the government school students secured A+, no student from the fisheries schools was able to do so.
The flagging performance of the fisheries schools is also reflected in the distribution of grades; for almost all subjects the maximum grades are between ‘B’ and ‘C.’ Only in Information Technology have students from the fisheries schools performed satisfactorily.
“The study shows that the fisheries schools have not been mainstreamed all these years. These schools, established to provide technical education also to children of fishermen, have not succeeded in fulfilling that task,” said Robert Panipilla, centre spokesperson. “Urgent government intervention is required to set right this situation,” he said.
