"If Bihar is able to maintain its present momentum in educational progress, it will hopefully achieve total literacy simultaneously with the rest of the country," said the report, "Elementary Education in Bihar: Progress and Challenges".

According to the report, among all Indian states, the literacy rate is the lowest in Bihar. The 2011 census records it at 63.8 percent compared to 74 percent for the entire country.

"The only ray of hope in this otherwise depressing scenario is the faster spread of literacy in Bihar during 2001 to 2011 than in India as a whole," the report said.

The report was released by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen three days ago, which was jointly prepared by the Pratichi India Trust and the Centre for Economic Policy and Public Finance, Bihar.

It pointed out that the present momentum in the progress of literacy in Bihar can be maintained only when elementary education in the state is strengthened.

"The differences between the all-India and Bihar literacy rate was only 4.5 percent in 1961, it has gradually increased to 18.2 percent by 2001," the report said.

"Fortunately, the spread of literacy during the last decade has been faster in Bihar than in India as a whole, reducing the gap in literacy rates to 10.2 percent," the report said.

It said there are certainly many signs of change. The number of schools has jumped, the shortfall of teachers has come down sharply, attendance of students is definitely up and the enrolment ratio has reached the comfortable figure of 98 percent.

The availability of schools has now been doubled as the number of schools per one lakh population has increased from 60.2 in 2005-06 to 107.3 in 2008-09.

The overall enrolment ratio in elementary education was found to be extremely high, about 98.1 percent for children of 6-14 years. Nearly 95 percent of the students are enrolled in government schools, the backbone of the elementary schooling system in the state.

The report added that there has been an advancement in teacher recruitment in Bihar in recent years, bringing their strength to about 4.33 lakh. However, the total required is at least 7.28 lakh, implying a shortfall of about 40.5 percent.

Comment

comments...

I go with the comment by Noble laureate Amartya sen’ Bihar has to focus on elementary education’ and my spotlight would be on this for always and not on the % as a figure.

Recently I went through a clip on face book which reveal the reality of Bihar education’s standard- though clip was shoot in one of the Primary school at Samastipur but I am quite sure circumstances is more or less across the Bihar. For example teacher her self was not knowing how many days in a year , not able to spell out Sunday , Monday , Jan feb ETC but have soft to the lady who looks very appealing in class because students were focusing on whatever was being taught to them.

I wan to express my view on the fact that – Bihar education ministry has to spare the seasoned teachers from the all other activities like – constructing the building which requires lots of time to get it done because Bihar is a Land of complexity, getting provisions for cooking the mid day meals… seasoned teachers are responsible for all kind of elections, census, they are being asked to attend the several unnecessary meetings..Distrbuting the dresses, getting sanctioned the cycles for students – all these process are running currently in all primary and middle level of educations…and we know how difficult it would be in our motherland- every level the exploitation is prevailing

If a teacher has no time to spend with students then how we can expect the quality of education where now a days school classes are being run by shiksha mitra and Bal didi- who are mostly uneducated and have completed the formalities based on the Fake certificates – also equally responsible people are local Mukhiya jee , jila Parshad , and block pramookhs who have been doing the blunder for mere a lakh of rupees as a bribe to give their favors while selecting the candidates.

Praveen kumar Srivastwa
Genpact Bangalore