Most Jharkhand School Students Forgot To Read And Write After Covid: Survey

Schools in Jharkhand are struggling with abysmal infrastructure, low attendance, a shortage of teachers, and inadequate funding after the Covid pandemic, a recent survey of 138 primary and upper-primary schools revealed. In a majority of these schools, teachers felt that "most" pupils had forgotten how to read and write by the time schools reopened in February 2022, it said, adding that little had been done to help these children.

The survey, conducted by Gyan Vigyan Samiti Jharkhand (GVSJ), a social movement driven by community-based volunteers, said that only 53% of primary schools and 19% of upper-primary schools in the sample had a student-teacher ratio below 30, as prescribed under the Right to Education Act. The survey focussed on government primary and upper-primary schools where at least 50% of the children enrolled come from scheduled caste (SC) or scheduled tribe (ST) families.

"In 2020-21, this fragile schooling system was hit hard by the Covid crisis. Primary and upper-primary schools were closed for two years - longer than anywhere else in the world," the report said, adding that school premises deteriorated for lack of maintenance.

Out of 138 schools in the sample, 20% had a single teacher, which was a male para-teacher in most cases. Almost 90% of students in these single-teacher schools are Dalit or Adivasi children, it said. The report was prepared by researcher Paran Amitava and Jean Dreze, one of India's most prominent economists.

It further found that about 40% of primary schools in the sample are run entirely by para-teachers.

Student attendance on the day of the survey, in September-October 2022, was just 68% in primary schools and 58% in upper-primary schools, and "not a single school" in the sample had functional toilets, electricity, and water supply.

The survey further found that two-thirds of primary schools in the sample had no boundary wall, 64% did not have a playground, and 37% had no library books.

A large majority (two-thirds) of the teachers said that the school did not have adequate funds for the midday meal at the time of the survey, it said.

Many schools are still not serving eggs twice a week, as has been prescribed, the survey said.

Jharkhand is one of the few states (also including Bihar, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh) where half of all children in the age group of 8-11 years were unable to read a simple paragraph in 2011, according to the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) data.