New Delhi, Mar 17: The Praja Foundation report, State of Public (School) Education, released on March 15 presents bad news for the AAP government in the capital. The report shows a decline in the quality of education in the state, contrary to the government claims, which says the education has been its top priority.
According to the report, after CBSE board examination was reintroduced, the pass percentage of class 10 from being 92.44% in 2016-17 fell to 68.9% in 2017-18 for the government schools, the report said.
The report released by the Praja Foundation, an NGO working in the sector, titled ‘State of School Education in Delhi’ was criticized by the AAP government for its lack of proper research. The report emphasized that around 40% of AAP MLAs did not raise a single issue on education between March 2017 to January 2018.
State government rejects report
The state government rubbished the report saying the organization had no clue about the ground reality, and considering their past reports their data was untrustworthy. “It would have been better had they compared the school education in Delhi before 2015 to now,” added the Delhi government spokesperson.
The report noted, “In MCD, 49 councillors did not raise even a single issue on education in 2017-18 and only 11% of total councillors in 2017-18 raised more than 10 issues.” The government has, however, refuted the claim, saying it had transformed the education sector in the capital state. The MCD schools also showed a dismal picture, where the student enrolment fell from 8.69 lakh in 2013-14 to 7.24 lakh in 2017-18, which is a 17% drop, according to the Praja Foundation report.
The report showed a disturbing trend for the public schools. It says Class 1 enrolments in MCD schools fell from 1.69 lakh in 2010-11 to 95,817 in 2017-18, which is a 43% drop. The current trend, if continued, according to a time series analysis, would result in enrolments dropping to 37,938 in 2020-21.
Government schemes not helping
The NGO report said the state’s correspondence education scheme, Patrachar, which helps the students who fail in Class VIII or IX to apply for Class X through correspondence, was also a failure. In 2017-18, only 2% of the students who dropped out of government schools registered for Class X, indicating a total failure of the scheme.
The non-profit organisation had previously noted in its report last year saying nearly 40,000 students in 100 schools of North Delhi Municipal Corporation being compelled to sit without benches to attend their classes. The report released then had found MCD schools fairing very poor with very high dropout rates by students.
