HYDERABAD: When it’s 9 am and most schools begin their classes, less than half of the 9-year-olds in Telangana schools can tell the time by looking at a clock. Recent statistics by Foundational Learning Study (FLS) show that only 44 per cent of Class 3 students in Telangana can tell time correctly while 41 per cent can do so if given a hint. The remaining 15 per cent have no clue on how to read the clock.
The FLS was conducted by the NCERT in collaboration with the Union Ministry of Education in March, 2022 to find out what Class 3 students are able to do in Foundational Literacy and Numeracy.
The FLS test administrators assessed
Class 3 students in the State and Central government, aided, private, recognised schools in each State. In Telangana, a total of 3,313 students from 349 schools participated in the study, which found that only 40 per cent of those students met global minimum proficiency standards of numeracy. The study also found that 63 per cent of students can identify month, date and day on a calendar correctly.
The students seem to have fared better in languages rather than in numbers. When it came to listening to different texts comprising one to three sentences and matching those with the given pictures, 79 per cent students could do so in English, 87 per cent in Telugu and 83 per cent in Urdu.