ASER surveys expose State's pathetic education scenario
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, February 19 2014: Even though overall literacy rate in the North eastern region is appreciably high at the national index, the Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2013 suggests that Manipur has the second highest rate of school drop-outs after Assam (16.2 percent) in the 15-16 years age-group among the NE States.

The annual report, ASER in short, also confirms that school sanitation system for the girl students is in the worst possible state in Manipur at a high of 65.4 percent.

According to the report, Assam at 16.2 percent has the highest number of girl students in the said age group dropping out of schools with Manipur's drop-out rate put at 8.5 percent while Sikkim is the best NE State at only 3.3 percent drop-out rate.

In other NE States the drop-out percentage is 7.7 in Mizoram, 7.4 in Nagaland and Meghalaya and 4.2 in Tripura.

At the national average the drop-out percentage was 17.2 in 2013 .

Regarding boys education, at 6.8 percent drop-out Manipur fares comparatively better in the region with only Sikkim having a better record of 5.5 percent.

The ASER report again ranks Assam as having the highest drop-out percentage among boys in the 15-16 years age group.

Nagaland at 10.4 percent, Tripura 6.9, 15.7 in Meghalaya and mizoram at 8.7 percent still have room for improvement in the education of the boys, the national average of which stands at 16.4 percent.

In the sanitation aspect, high percentage of girl students in Manipur do not have separate toilet facility with the ASER census ranking Manipur as the worst State at 65.4 percent of the schools not having separate toilets for girl students.

Contrary to the national average of 19.3 percent, the North eastern States fare poorly in this sector with Meghalaya at 39.2 the second worst in the region, followed by Nagaland at 38 percent, Assam 25.7 and Tripura 21.4 while Sikkim, again, is the best at only 8.2 of the schools not having the basic facility.

The ASER (rural) report is said to be the findings of an organisation called PRATHAM, whose main objectives since 2005 is to assess standard of education in the primary level in the country and illustrate deficiencies with statistical back-up.

The ASER exercise also covers level of students' cerebral capability at the primary level, whether their intelligence is compatible with the class they are studying at and conducting random check/test for evaluating to what extent they have attained basic numerical (mathematics) knowledge.

Moreover, assessing availability of basic infrastructure in educational institutions as envisioned under the Right to Education Act is another task of the ASER report.

The latest report which is ASER's ninth exercise is said to have covered 550 districts, 15,941 villages and 14,724 schools in the country out of which 30 villages each in the nine districts of Manipur were listed for the assessment exercise.

During the said exercise ASER teams visited 189 schools spread across the State along with quizzing the students to assess their reading and mathematical solution capabilities.

an unhealthy trend for Manipur highlighted in the report concerns increasing drop-out rate of girl students, in between 6-16 years of age, as they progress from the lower to the higher classes.

In between 7-10 years the drop-out rate among girl students has been put at 1.2 percent whereas the boys' figure has been cited at 0.9 percent.

The drop-out rate of girl students increases to 2.3 percent for 11-14 years of age with boys in the same age group dropping out at 2.1 percent.

parents preferring for private educational institutions than Government schools existent in the State has also been confirmed in the status report (ASER) whereby figure shows that 70.5 percent of the students are enrolled in private schools, the highest rate in the national context.

Private school students in the State opting for private tuitions has also been put at 43.8 percent, according to the ASER findings in which only 13 percent of the schools covered during the census exercise were found to be having potable water facility for the students.

It also pointed out that 23.7 percent of the State's schools have absolutely no toilet facility, while 28.5 percent of the schools have building facility but without requisite infrastructure.

The ASER (Rural) 2013 North East India provisional compilation was formally released today at Manipur Press Club.

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