By now, we already know that the pandemic has impacted the learning ability of school children. But as per a report, in Chhattisgarh, the percentage of beginner-level class students who are unable to even recognise letters has doubled in 2021 as opposed to what it was in the year 2018.
As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 for Chhattisgarh, which is based on a survey of 45,992 children who are in the age category of 3-16 years from 33,432 households across 28 districts of the state, in the days before the pandemic (2014-2018), the learning outcomes were improving, but with COVID-induced school closures, a serious learning loss has been caused.
Children's foundational reading and arithmetic levels have dropped substantially between 2018 and 2021, especially in primary classes, as per a report in PTI.
The report also highlights the drop that was evident when it comes to the basic reading ability in all classes in the year 2021 when compared to the pre-pandemic levels. The proportion of those children at beginner-level (unable to recognise even letters of Hindi and English alphabets) in Classes II, III and VI had doubled in 2021 from what it was in 2018.
It increased from 19.5 per cent to 37.6 per cent for children in Class II; from 10.4 per cent to 22.5 per cent in Class III and from 2.5 per cent to 4.8 per cent in Class VI, it said.
The foundational reading level in Classes I to VII now is lower than it has ever been in the last decade. The report went on to point out that the largest drop was visible in the lowest grades, especially in those children who study in government schools. The number of children who cannot read letters is high in Naxal-hit and tribal-dominated Bastar, Bijapur and Dantewada districts.
When it comes to district levels, in Bastar and Bijapur, the proportion of children who study in Classes I and II in government schools who can't read letters is above 70 per cent. In Dantewada (South Bastar) and Bijapur, the proportion of those students in Classes III to V studying in government schools who cannot read the text of Class II level is below 10 per cent.
Math woes
A decline was found in children's foundational arithmetic ability as well when compared with the levels it touched in the year 2018.
In Dantewada, Surajpur and Bijapur districts, the proportion of students from government schools of Class I and II who cannot recognise single-digit numbers is more than 60 per cent and in Bilaspur, Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Mungeli, only 10 per cent of the kids who pursue their Class III to V in government schools can solve a subreaction problem, the report found.
It's not all doom and gloom
Pandemic notwithstanding, enrollment rates were looking up for the year 2021 across all age groups.
"There is an increase in government school enrollment from 76.4 per cent in 2018 to 82.9 per cent in 2021 for children in the age group of 6-14 years," the report said, adding this rise was seen across all age groups and genders.
The report even mentioned Padhai Tunhar Dwar, the state government initiative launched in April 2020 in light of the closure of schools due to the pandemic.
"At the district level as well, awareness about the Padhai Tunhar Dwar portal was the highest among children in standards IX-XII in government schools. The districts with the lowest awareness of the portal, with less than 13 per cent of government school children responding that they knew about the portal, were Bijapur, Surguja and Surajpur," the report said.
Overall, about a third of the students from government schools had attended school-facilitated community classes at least once before school reopened and it was in Dhamtari, Kanker (North Bastar), Balod and Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi districts where the attendance was over 50 per cent, the survey found.
The purpose
"ASER conducts surveys every year across the country. Due to the pandemic, it could not have done it (in 2021). We specially requested the orgnisation for the survey as we wanted to know our status," Principal Secretary (education) Alok Shukla told PTI.
"The survey provided us district-wise data which revealed about learning ability loss. It was not something which was unexpected. There will be learning loss when schools are closed. It has not happened just in Chhattisgarh," he said.
Shukla added that the data does indicate that a large number of children also benefitted from the government's online classes.
Speaking about the future course of action, Shukla said, "We have prepared a remedial programme jointly with ASER centre for students. But at present, we have to introduce it online only due to the pandemic and this platform is not so effective. But we hope, sooner or later, the pandemic will end and schools will resume (in-person classes) and we will bring students to the desired levels of learning."
Rajiv Gupta, State President of the Private School Association, shared that lack of resources to attend online classes and negligence on part of the government as major factors for learning loss among students.
