Patna, (Bihar Times): Whatever may be the claim there
is hardly any change in Bihar in the last three years
so far school education is concerned.
According to the findings of the Flash Statistics:
Elementary Education in India and Progress Towards
Universal Elementary Education 2006-07 Bihar is very
much there where it was in 2005-06 or even earlier.
The only consolation is that the situation in
neighbouring Jharkhand is equally bad. Kerala, once
again, tops the list. There is no improvement in
composite index with Bihar ranking 35th.
The data was released by the National Univeristy of
Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) for
the Ministry of Human Resources Development. The data
was received from 1.20 million schools spread across
609 districts of the country.
The education development index at the primary level
shows that Bihar ranks 29th, the same as in 2005-06.
Jharkhand is ranked 30. However, in terms of teachers’
index Bihar is at the bottom, that is, 36th ranked.
This is the same as in the 2005-06.
In the Upper Primary Level, however, Bihar’s ranking
has slightly improved––from 30 to 29 while Jharkhand
is at 33. It seems that the first-phase of teachers’
recruitment had some impact as the state has moved two
ranks and is now placed at 32.
The ratio of primary to upper primary schools has come
down from 3.6 in 2005-06 to 2.9 in 2006-07. There are
67 per cent schools with 60 or more children in one
class-room while around 46 per cent schools have three
or less teachers. The pupil-teacher ratio in the
primary school is 68 which is quite high. This is
attributed to the increase in gross enrollment ratio.
Fifty four per cent schools do not have toilet
facilities for girls.
The percentage of female teacher is 27.91 in Bihar.
This notwithstanding the fact that there was 50 per
cent reservation for them in the recent recruitment.
However, it is still far behind than Kerala,
Karnataka, Maharashtra etc.