Failing the kids, again

Yet another performance survey brings out the poor report card of Punjab schools. It just reaffirms what has been revealed year after year. As per the 2016 Annual Survey of Education Report, the learning levels of rural primary students were found to be lower than that in 2010. The national achievement survey in July earlier this year threw up alarming results: except for the subject of Punjabi, Class X schoolchildren of Punjab scored an average of just 39 per cent in the assessment tests of the seminal subjects of mathematics, science, social science, English. Now, we have the equally woeful finding of the state’s first ever grading conducted by the Punjab Education Development Board. Of the 1,740 schools sampled, at least 100 have failed to get the pass percentage of 33. They were appraised for academic merit, infrastructure, co-curricular activities, attendance and school management committees.

Regular assessment is undoubtedly the key to knowing how the student is motivated and learning and also how the teacher is imparting education. It forms the basis of looking for ways to improve the performance. But it seems that despite being armed with these uninspiring results for several years, the state has not been able to accurately diagnose the maladies and take corrective measures. It has fallen short in using successive findings as inputs to evolve effective initiatives that would improve learning outcomes. The flip-flop policies regarding no-detention, for example, are indicative of knee-jerk reactions, rather than a solution based on sincere, indepth analysis.

There is a lot on the plate of woes of the Punjab school education sector. There is little room for improvement until the myriad issues concerning teachers plaguing it are tackled, for only a happy teacher can impart the gift of education to a child. Unless discrepancies in teacher deployment, teacher transfer and rationalisation policies are urgently removed, we may have to, sadly, be saddled with another generation of children passing out — if at all — from school minus the basic level of proficiency expected of them. Children’s education must be prioritised.