Children with sarkari parents top the class

BANGALORE: Children of government employees are smart, doing far better in their studies than their counterparts with parents in other professions. It could have something to do with the stability of a sarkari job, and the string of holidays a babu enjoys — whatever the reason, their kids make the cut.
Results of the first-ever, state-wide assessment of learning levels of children by Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan-Karnataka show that government servants have the smartest kids in public and semi-aided schools.The learning achievement of children, whose parents have taken up sarkari jobs, is way higher than their classmates whose parents are farmers, labourers, private employees or entrepreneurs.
A baseline study of the learning achievement of some 1.3 lakh kids in Classes 3, 5 and 7 show that children of government-employed parents outsmart other classmates across grades — and subjects — while the performance of children of agriculturists improves as they move up from Class 3 to 7. All students selected for the study were asked 30 questions on each subject, focused on comprehension, expression, reading and listening, last year.
In Class 3, wards of government servants showed a learning achievement of 63.03% compared to 58.21% by children whose parents were engaged in commercial activities. In Class 5, ‘sarkari’ kids managed to achieve 63.59%, while achievement among kids of labourers was only 58.06%. Across grades, the best performance was, surprisingly, in English, while all students struggled with Maths.
Experts say that multiple factors help children of government-employed parents outsmart other classmates. “A government job, more than anything else, guarantees a permanent income, decent housing and job security. Those employed by the government would have at least passed Class 10. Naturally, the social and economic ambience that such families provide for their children to continue with their education is better than, say, a farmer or a daily labourer,” observes A S Seetharamu, consultant with SSA-Karnataka. Among 33 districts, kids in Bagalkot recorded the highest learning achievement, while Bidar ended up at the bottom of the list.