HYDERABAD: Performance of students studying in government and government-aided schools of Hyderabad is much below than those from the most backward districts of Karnataka, Kerala or Andhra Pradesh. This can be deduced from the recently released National Achievement Survey-2017 (NAS) District Report Card (DRC) by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD). The survey was conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) last year. Survey tools included test booklets with 45 questions on maths and language for students of classes III and V and 60 questions on maths, language, science and social sciences for pupil of Class VIII.
Also, questionnaires related to students, teachers and schools were part of the survey. “The questions reflected learning outcome set by the NCERT and recently incorporated in the RTE Act,” according to HRD Ministry. For the survey 2.2 million students from 1,10,000 schools across 700 districts in all 36 states and UTs were assessed.
Survey outcome
In Hyderabad, 663 students from government and 509 from government-aided schools were surveyed. The average performance of class 8 students in mathematics, for example, was just 33.48 percent. Twenty types of questions were asked to test various mathematical skills like solving problems involving large numbers by applying appropriate operations, finding surface area and volume of a cuboidal and cylindrical object and problems on daily life situations involving addition and subtraction of fractions/decimals.
Compared to Hyderabad students, the performance of class 8 students in backward districts of Gadag and Kalburgi (Karnataka) was 56.2 and 48.6 percent respectively, it was 47.7 percent in Wayanad (Kerala) and 58.7 percent in Srikakulam (Andhra Pradesh. ) The only state in South whose district report cards are as bad as Telangana is Tamil Nadu.
Not just Hyderabad but district report cards of all districts in Telangana paint a sad picture of the state of affairs of school education in the state. For example in Adilabad, a backward district, the average performance of class 8 students in mathematics, science, social studies and Languages was 28.6 percent, 30.5 percent, 28.7 pc and 38.9 pc respectively compared to another backward district Vizianagaram in AP, which is 46.9 pc, 47.9 pc , 54.6 pc and 46.5 pc.