There is no surprise here: Government schools in Dakshina Kannada district are the best in the state, according to rankings compiled district-wise for the first time by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
Schools across Karnataka were surveyed in five categories that the SSA identified as facilitating a learning environment. These are infrastructure, student development and monitoring committee (SDMC) participation, clubs, grant utilisation and learning. From July 15 to August 15, government schools in districts have been ranked on the lines of what the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) does.
Dakshina Kannada district has earned an ‘A’ grade and tops the ranking table with 80.36 per cent. The other seven districts graded ‘A’ are Kodagu (79.17), Gadag (78.05), Uttara Kannada (77.78), Sirsi (76.73), Dharwad (75.81), Udupi (75.42) and Bangalore Rural (75.02).
Two districts at the bottom of table — Gulbarga (59.14) and Bidar (56.28) — have been given ‘C’ grade. The remaining districts, including Bangalore North, Bangalore South, Mysore and Shimoga, were given ‘B’ grade. There, however, does not seem to be a correlation between grading of schools and SSLC pass percentage of districts this year.
Dakshina Kannada got a pass percentage of 78.77, which is just seven percentage points above Gulbarga, with 71.30. But districts with B grade schools like Koppal, Chamarajanagar and Raichur have got higher pass percentages than Dakshina Kannada, with 81.93, 82.13 and 82.42 respectively.
District SSA deputy project co-ordinator N Shivaprakash told Express that close on the heels of the Commissioner of Public Instruction circulating a detailed questionnaire, two teams personally assessed four schools each based on the five yardsticks. The data was compiled and the district-wise ranking list was uploaded online here recently.
Meeting all parameters of quality education has also helped Mangalore city (81.62), Bantwal (79.51), Beltangady (80.20), Puttur (80.35), Sullia (82.40), Mangalore taluk (78.96) and Moodbidri (79.46) to get ‘A’ grade. Mangalore has the highest SDMC score with 100 and infrastructure score with 87.73.
The SDMC, which has parents and local representatives besides teachers on it, works among other things, on student outreach and bringing in out of school students.
“It’s a heady feeling to top the rankings. But we cannot remain complacent,’’ Shivaprakash says.
There are certain areas like computer facilities (35.94) for students which have received ‘C’ grade.
“We need to draw an action plan and ensure enough computer facilities to students to receive A grade,’’ he says.
He adds that after the ranking their responsibilities had increased two-fold.