Punjab govt schools improve, but private schools still have edge

Ability to do arithmetic operations has improved significantly in 2015 in government schools, especially in classes from 1 to 5. Government schools students in class 3 who could perform basic arithmetic operations increased from 32.1 per cent in 2014 to 48.9 per cent in 2015. In private schools, around 63 per cent of students could perform basic arithmetic operations.

Private schools have an edge in terms of enrolment in rural Punjab with around 52 per cent of children attending such schools instead of public schools.

While the gap between reading levels in government and private schools remains, it is substantially smaller this year. For instance, in government schools, the percentage of children in standard 3rd who could read at least a standard one level text, increased from 42.4 per cent in 2014 to 56.6 per cent in 2015-an increase of over 14 per cent points.

In comparison, in private schools the corresponding increase was only about 2 per cent, from 62.8 per cent (2014) to 64.6 per cent in 2015. Although reading ability of students have improved in in government schools in higher grades (class 5 to 8), the gain is not substantial as compared to those of primary grade.

Attendance of both students and teachers has decreased compared to the last survey in 2014. There were 76.9 per cent students present on the day of survey in 2015 as against 81.4 per cent in 2014. Around 80 per cent teachers were present as against 85.5 per cent in 2014.

According to the report, in over 53 per cent schools, students of class 4 were sitting with one or more classes while in over 57 per cent schools the children of class 2 were found sitting with one and more classes.

The survey, released recently, a total of 13,141 children from 11,840 household in 593 villages were covered 20 districts.