Centre must push teacher training, eLearning apart from consolidation of school facilities.
What is the status of school education?
Over the last four years, both primary and upper primary schools with zero enrolment have increased.
Zero-enrolment schools in case of upper primary accounted for 0.7% of total schools in 2015-16 as compared to 0.3% in 2012-13.
But a report states that levels of education in the country have dropped in the last decade in government schools.
While 56.7% of class V students in government students could read English words in 2007, this dropped to 39.7% in 2016.
A similar trend is noticed for mathematics and reading ability.
Many of the schools in India are understaffed or has absent teachers.
How government can address this issues?
Recently released set of draft guidelines on consolidation of school infrastructure may help remedy the education situation.
Schools within a particular vicinity could be consolidated in fewer campuses to provide efficient and better quality education.
Apart from consolidation, it also needs to improve teacher training and inculcate e-learning.
The government plans to improve school infrastructure on a war footing, like it did for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
Rationalisation can be a good vehicle to bring in technology-aided learning.
A study using learning software Mind spark shows that the software improved learning outcomes for the students, and also proved to be cost-efficient than the present set-up.
