Gujarat among bottom 5 in keeping kids in high school

AHMEDABAD: Low wages and mediocre recruitment procedure have taken a heavy toll on the crucial primary education sector in our state. Not only have lakhs of children in government primary schools been deprived of quality teachers, the situation has also led to teenagers being demotivated from continuing school.
The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released on Wednesday starkly reflects this point.While Gujarat may have figured among top five states to comply with maintaining a high pupil-teacher and classroom -teacher ratios, at 81.6% and 90.5% respectively, it is among the bottom five, when it comes to teaching as well as retaining children in higher standards.
In terms of retaining children in the higher secondary standards, especially teenage girl children in the age group of 15 to 16 years, out of 21 major states, just three Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh have more girls not enrolled in schools than in Gujarat, where 23.5% girl students are not in school. Gujarat’s figures on this count are higher than states like Odisha (19.2%), Chhattisgarh (18.4%), Jharkhand (14.3%), Assam (12%) and Bihar (11.3%). It is not any different for teenage boys as well. ASER has found that in case of enrolment of rural boys’ in the age group of 15 to 16 years, of the 21 major states, just three (Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh) have a higher percent of children not in school, than Gujarat (18.7%).
Principal secretary, primary and secondary education, Sunaina Tomar told TOI, “The ASER report is as important for us as Gunotsav. We will identify the problem areas and work on them,” assured Tomar. She also pointed out to recently introduced measures to hold teachers accountable, “From this year on we have warned that teachers who perform poorly will see adverse remarks in their annual confidential reports,” said Tomar. Besides this, Tomar has also targeted trainers in Block Resource and Cluster Resource centres too. “BRCs and CRCs that do not improve quality of teaching will be strictly dealt with,” says Tomar.