83% government schools in the state have less than 60 students

Students going to school (representative image) credits: Wiki Media Commons 

By :Shalini Thakur

Dharamshala: The number of government schools with less than 60 students is increasing in the state for the last decade, reveals the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018 brought out by Pratham, an NGO working to improve quality of education.  According to the report, 58.1% government schools in the state had less than 60 students in 2009, now the figure stands at 83.1%.

“In our school there are 50 students at present and there are only two teachers. The strength was the same last year too. But earlier, we used to have more than 70 students, “says Anjana Kumari, a Para Assistant teacher in government school, Khaniyara.

According to ASER 2018, the enrollment of students between the age group of 6 to 15 in private schools in the state marked more than two percent increase between 2016 and 2018. At national level the corresponding rise for the period is just 0.03%.

“I am a former student of this school which started in 1927. At that time it used to be at its best”, says Vijay Kumar, who heads the Government Primary School in Khaniyara. “But now things have changed, children at three are going to play schools, LKG,UKG and everybody prefers private schools, “ he adds.

"Quality of education won't be improved just by yielding infrastructure to schools" says Naveen Bhandari, Principal of Government Senior Secondary School at Khaniyara Khas, Dharamshala. He thinks that the debate over the comparative quality of education imparted by private and government educational institutions will never come to an end.

"Being a father, i want my son to get good education. He is studying in a private school because I know the conditions of government schools. In my school itself, there are no recruitments of teachers for the past one year,” he says.

However, not everything is hunky-dory with private schools in the state as per the figures released. For instance, the percentage growth in students in the 8th standard who can do division was 4.3 between 2016 and 2018 in government schools. But it fell by 5.1 percent in private schools in the state for the same period.

“The students who are weak in studies are usually removed from private schools. Sending them to our schools is the only option left with their parents,” says Anjana. Despite this, learning levels of students enrolled in government schools in the state shows improvement. Percentage of 5th standard students in government schools who can read at least a 2nd standard text was 65.3 in 2016, which improved to 74.5 in 2018. Corresponding figures for the private school students were 78 in 2016 and 80.4 in 2018. Proportion of students at 5th standard in government schools who can do division improved from 47.4% in 2016 to 51.5% in 2018. Corresponded figures for private schools were 63% and 64%.