Dr.
Chavan on the performance of states in last 10
years in regards with UEE.
Bihar started very low. In 4 to 5years Bihar’s
school dropouts were from 14% to 15%.
However in the last 3-4 years the proportion of
dropouts (in Bihar) has fallen by around 12%,
which is huge improvement. They have covered a
lot of grounds; they have opened more schools,
recruited many more teachers. But the quality
of education in Bihar can be improved further.
On the issue of learning, states like Madhya Pradesh,
Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, have being successful
in their special efforts.
There is a very interesting exercise happening
in Tamil Nadu, called activity based learning,
but we don’t see any learning improvement.
In the activity, they have converted the textbooks
into reading cards. It is essentially saying that
a child can learn according to a learning ladder
at his/her own pace rather than allotting them
in standards. The teachers are not allowed to
teach as much as the child is allowed to learn.
Based on the Rishi-valley school method, it is
an interesting exercise but on scale with the
kinds of schools and children the method has not
been successful. We don’t see much change
in the learning levels, it seems that children
who were learning and could learn have benefited
while the children who are lagging behind are
not picking up either.
