Telangana fares poorly in National Achievement Survey

The Parakh Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 report, released by the Central government, reveals that a staggering 75 per cent of the Class IX students failed to understand and apply the fundamental concept of percentage for cracking a simple problem

Hyderabad: The Telangana government’s initiatives of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy, and Learning Improvement Programmes to improve basic competencies and learning levels among school students appear to have fallen flat.

The Parakh Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 report, formerly National Achievement Survey (NAS), released by the Central government, showed alarming learning gaps, raising questions and concerns over the effectiveness of such interventions.

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A staggering 75 per cent of the Class IX students failed to understand and apply the fundamental concept of percentage for cracking a simple problem, while 69 per cent from the same standard could not understand sets of numbers, such as whole numbers, fractions, integers, rational and real numbers.

Worrying trends in mathematics were also visible even in lower grades as 54 per cent of Class VI students failed to recognise, describe, or extend simple number patterns. As for mathematics competency levels of Class III students, 52 per cent failed to arrange numbers up to 99 in ascending and descending order, and 49 per cent could not perform simple addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers.

The survey revealed that 69 per cent of Class IX students were unable to explain key natural phenomena, such as climate, weather, ocean cycles, soil formation, and river flow. Language skills were no better, as 46 per cent of Class IX students were unable to identify main points and summarise information.

Overall, Telangana Class IX students’ competency levels in mathematics (36 per cent), Science (39 per cent), and Social Science (38 per cent) were below the national average – mathematics (37 per cent), science and social science (40 per cent). But the performance of State students in language was at par with the national average of 54 per cent.

In terms of language skills among Class VI students, 48 per cent failed to apply comprehension strategies to understand different texts. Another 42 per cent could not understand the main idea and draw essential conclusions from the material provided to them during the survey.

As for overall competency levels, in language (53 per cent), mathematics (44 per cent), and the world around us (44 per cent), the average performance of Class VI students in Telangana has been recorded lower than the national average by four, two and five per cent, respectively.