BHUBANESWAR: Performance of Odisha students in primary and elementary grades is better than the national average when it comes to school education in the country. This has been revealed in the National Achievement Survey (NAS)-2021, which was released by the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry of Education on Wednesday.
The national-level survey assessed the learning achievements of students of Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10 studying in both State and Centre-run schools besides, government-aided and private schools.
While subjects covered in the survey were language, mathematics & EVS for Class 3 and 5; it was language, mathematics, science & social science for Class 8 and language, mathematics, science, social science and english for Class 10 students. Attendance of students for the NAS in Odisha was over 80 percent in 5,563 schools that were selected for the survey on November 12 last year. The last NAS was held in 2017.
It revealed that students of Class 3 scored 65 pc in language against the national average of 62 while the percentage was 60 against the national average of 57 in case of maths. When it comes to EVS (environmental studies), the achievement was 59 pc against 57 pc national average. While the overall achievement score for Grade 3 students was 61.3 pc in Odisha, the national average stood at 59.
Similarly in Class 5, students scored 47 pc and 48 pc in maths and EVS in comparison to national average of 44 and 48 pc respectively. The overall national average in this case stood at 49 pc while the State scored 49.4 pc.In Class 8, students matched the national average in language (53 pc) and social science (39 pc) subjects and fared better in mathematics (38 pc) and science (40 pc) than the national average of 36 and 39 pc respectively.
However, what comes as a concern is that students of Class 8 could not solve problems related to daily life situations involving rational numbers and conduct simple investigation to seek answers to scientific queries.But when it comes to Class 10, average performance of students was below 50 per cent (pc) in all the five subjects. At least 98 pc of students in all the four grades said they love attending physical classes in schools and understand what their teachers teach them in classes.