Despite the fact that visible infrastructure strengthening and recruitment of teachers have been made in schools over the past few years, there has not been any noticeable improvement observed in learning ability of students in elementary schools across Odisha.
According to Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)-2014, in Odisha, 8.8 per cent children in standard III cannot even read alphabet while in the same standard 21.9 per cent can read alphabet but not more, 22.5 per cent can read words but not Standard I level text or higher in the State.
Students in private schools have fared well compared to their counterparts in government schools. In government schools, 82.4 per cent children in standard II and III can read at least alphabet while the percentage of pupils soars in this category to 96.2 per cent in private schools, the ASER survey says.
About 66.8 per cent of students in Standard II and III in government schools can read at least words, in private schools the same is found at 92.4 per cent, it says.
In Std III, 8.6 per cent children cannot even recognise numbers from 1 to 9 whereas 28.1 per cent can recognise numbers up to 9 but not more, 35.2 per cent can recognise numbers up to 99 but cannot do subtraction, 21.3 per cent can do subtraction but cannot do division, and only 6.9 per cent can do division.
During past four years (from 2010 to 2014), the performance level swings between 80 to 90 per cent in category of children recognising number 1 to 9 while same percentage falls to 60 per cent in cases of children knowing numbers 10-99. Children studying in private schools are way ahead of government school students.
