MINISTER OF THE STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT (DR. D. PURANDESWARI)
(a) to (d): The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is brought out annually by PRATHAM, a non-governmental organization. ASER
(Rural)– 2011 points out a decline in the reading levels in some States. However, States like Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu have
reported improvement in the reading levels. The report also points to decline in basic arithmetic levels. However, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have reported improvement. Several States in the North Eastern Region of the country also show positive change.
The National Learners’ Achievement Surveys conducted periodically by National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT)
for classes III, V and VIII has revealed improvements in the overall learning level in the subjects of Mathematics and Language.
Till now, two rounds of such Achievement Surveys have been completed by NCERT. A comparative table of the progress in respect of
the two rounds is given below:
Subject Class III Class V Class VIII
Round I Round II Round I Round II Round I Round II
Mathematics 58.25% 61.89% 46.51% 48.46% 39.17% 42.71%
Language 63.12% 67.00% 58.57% 60.31% 53.86% 56.50%
The findings of Achievement Survey for Round III, class V recently completed by NCERT indicates improvement in achievement levels in both
Mathematics and Language.
(e): The Government has issued an Advisory on implementation of section 29 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
(RTE) Act to State Governments for initiating curriculum reform, including, inter alia (i) formulating age-appropriate curricula and
syllabi in keeping with National Curriculum Framework (NCF)-2005, (ii) maintaining subject balance,(iii) initiating textbook contents
and production reform, (iv) ensuring continuous and comprehensive assessment for learning.
Teacher availability in schools is key to the improvement of quality of learning. The RTE Act provides that the prescribed Pupil Teacher
Ratio (PTR) should be maintained for each school. States have been advised to rationalise the deployment of teachers to conform to the
provisions of the RTE Act. Further, the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) has laid down teacher qualifications under Section
23 of the RTE Act. NCTE has also notified the Guidelines for Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) to be conducted by the appropriate government.
The Central TET has been held twice, and several States have also held the State TET.
