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Tamil Nadu has been known for its model of social development, especially with regard to access to primary health care and high enrolment of students in schools. However, the quality of school education, when measured by foundational learning outcomes, especially in primary schools in Tamil Nadu, is found to be woefully inadequate.
The main handicap has been the government’s focus on school education from an “input” model — building infrastructure and fixing hardware to aid learning — rather than an “outcome” based model. An outcome-based model would require that teachers’ training be improved, applied teaching methods with creative activities be implemented and so on. The issue has become structural and institutional now, not just in Tamil Nadu but in the entire country.
Several studies have illustrated the seriousness of the learning challenges in India. The World Bank report on the State of Global Learning Poverty: 2022 stated that in India, between 2017 and 2021, average language scores for Class 5 students on the national assessment had declined to 309 from 319, and average mathematics scores declined to 284 from 310. The decline is about 10% for maths scores.
Though the poor performance of children in primary schools in recent years has been blamed on the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, the fact is that for decades independent educationists and public policy experts have been urging governments to focus on improving the quality of foundational learning for children. Fortunately, now, governments are concerned and have launched programmes to improve the foundational learning.
In 2021, the Union Ministry of Education launched the “National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN)” to ensure that every child in the country necessarily attains foundational literacy and numeracy when they complete Class 3, by the year 2027. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu government also launched the “Ennum Ezhuthum” scheme in June 2022 on a mission to improve literacy and numeracy by up to 8 years by 2025. The schemes of the union government and the Tamil Nadu government are similar in nature.
The main handicap has been the government’s focus on school education from an “input” model — building infrastructure and fixing hardware to aid learning — rather than an “outcome” based model
The current status of the foundational learning of literacy and numeracy of primary school children in Tamil Nadu has been revealed in three studies to be abysmal. The findings may have surprised many, but in reality this has been the trend for a long time.
As part of the outcome assessment of the NIPUN programme, the Foundational Learning Study (FLS) 2022 was conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) across the country in March 2022. Of the 86,000 students who participated, 2,937 students from 336 schools are from Tamil Nadu. Tiruchirappalli district is one of the top ten low-performing districts in the country.
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The FLS study revealed that about 50% of Class III students in Tamil Nadu cannot read Tamil correctly and that only 20% had the minimum proficiency in understanding Class III-level Tamil text. Tamil Nadu’s performance is also the lowest compared to the performance of children in Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada languages.
The NCERT study also found that in numeracy learning, only 23% of students from Tamil Nadu had the minimum proficiency of identifying and reading numbers, addition, and subtraction, identifying bigger numbers, and day, date, and month in the calendar. Further, about 52% of students could not even identify the day, date, and month in the calendar. In contrast, more than 40% of Class III students from other southern states have minimum proficiency in numbers.
Moreover, primary school students in Tamil Nadu also fared poorly in reading English. Only 29% of students could read more than 35 words in one minute, and 43% of students lacked basic knowledge and skills and were able to read only 0 to 14 words in a minute. Also, most students were not able to complete the most basic grade-level tasks. However, at the national level, only 17% lacked basic knowledge and skills and 54% had a minimum level of proficiency in English.
The other study, the State of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy in India report-2022, released by Stanford University’s Institute for Competitiveness, revealed that students in Tamil Nadu studying in Tamil medium showed an abysmal performance, with only 9% of students exceeding global proficiency levels and 48% of students falling below the global level of partially proficient. The global benchmark on proficiency level and partial proficiency level is 51% and 6% respectively.
The FLS study revealed that about 50% of Class III students in Tamil Nadu cannot read Tamil correctly and that only 20% had the minimum proficiency in understanding Class III-level Tamil text. Tamil Nadu’s performance is also the lowest compared to the performance of children in Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada languages.
A 2021 study by the Institute for Competitiveness revealed that out of 40 indicators selected for assessment of school education on five important themes such as school infrastructure, access to education, basic health, learning outcomes, and governance, in 32 indicators (80%) Tamil Nadu ranked as underperforming. Tamil Nadu was found to be overperforming only on 6 indicators (15%), and performing within the expected range only on two indicators (5%). In the 2022 study, out of 39 performance indicators — the most greatly improved — Tamil Nadu was overperforming on 15 of them (38%), performing within range on 23 of them (59%) and underperforming only on one of the indicators(3%).
According to the Annual Status of Education Report, (ASER 2022) survey, Tamil Nadu was among the States with the lowest reading levels (4.8%) in primary school education. For basic arithmetic learning, only 11.2% of the children surveyed in Class 3 were able to do subtraction, and 14.9% from Class 5 were able to do division in Tamil Nadu.
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Also, the Performance Grading Index (PGI) report in 2019-20 by the Union Ministry of Education found that Tamil Nadu ranked the lowest among southern states in terms of learning outcomes and quality of education. Similarly, the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021 found that Class VIII and X students from Tamil Nadu lacked problem-solving skills, and were unable to use rational numbers in day-to-day life. They could also not locate important historical sites and places on the map. Further, the NAS report for Tamil Nadu found that only 2% of Class X students were proficient in science, and 8% had achieved the intended learning outcomes in maths and social science. The remaining students were at the basic and below-basic levels.
Looking at findings of the ASER surveys over a period of time, one can see that the reading levels of children in Std III in Tamil Nadu’s primary schools steadily declined to 4.8% in 2022 from 8.4% in 2012, in both government and private schools. Even if we look at government and private schools separately, it declined to 4.7% in 2022 from 8.5% in 2012 for government schools and to 5% in 2022 from 8.4% in 2012 for private schools. Further, in both government and private schools in Tamil Nadu, only 25.2% of children in Class V could read Class II level text in 2022, while the figure had been 30.3% in 2012.
The current model of teacher training-cum-education and in-service training systems are flawed, as about 90% of teacher training colleges in India are under the private sector, and they tend to have vested interests. Primary school teachers need to approach children from a multidisciplinary perspective. Thus, it is hoped that the New Education Policy -2020 and the programmes like NIPUN and “Ennum Ezhuthum” would help to improve the foundational learning and proficiency of primary school children.
The main reasons for the poor performance of primary school children, which are often stated, include a shortage of teachers in primary schools and the lack of monitoring of teaching and learning activities. However, Tamil Nadu has one of the best Pupil-Teacher ratios in the country, with one teacher for every 20 children. Yet, the children’s performance is poor. Another problem is that primary school teachers are routinely engaged by the government in non-teaching activities.
In addition there is no system by which responsibility and accountability can be fixed on school teachers. Inadequate teachers’ training also means that the educators are not inspired to approach children with a mindset conducive to their learning and growth. Thus there is no attempt to use innovative methods or interesting examples in the method of teaching. The State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) does not seem very effective in training primary school teachers and facilitating their access to innovative resource materials to inspire children to get attracted toward foundational learning.
(The author is an economist and public policy expert)
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