Kerala, Manipur top in private school enrolments

Orissa, West Bengal and Bihar have the maximum enrolment in public schools

Kerala and Manipur have topped in terms of the number of students attending private schools in comparison to public schools. Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar have the most enrolments in public schools in the country, a survey has said.

The annual status of education report by Delhi-based non-government organisation Pratham also said the enrolments in primary schools in the country was 96 per cent but raised serious concerns on the quality of education. Meanwhile, the number of girls enrolling in the age group of 11 to 14 rose six per cent last year, the survey said.

The study was conducted across 550 villages in the country. It said the number of students enrolling in private schools in the country was 29 per cent this year.

"At the all-India level, for standard three, the proportion of children able to read at least a standard-one-level text has risen slightly from 38.8 per cent in 2012 to 40.2 per cent in 2013 and is driven by improvements among private school children. The proportion of children in standard five who can read a standard-two-level text remains the same since 2012 at 47 per cent," the survey said.

The government's Right to Education (RTE) Act seems to have yielded results. "The proportion of schools that comply with the RTE pupil-student ratio norms has increased every year, from 38.9 per cent in 2010 to 45.3 per cent in 2013," the survey added.

Meanwhile, the study said the number of students in standard five who could do basic arithmetic division continued to be poor, with only 25.6 per cent of the students able to do basic mathematics. India's education sector has been criticised for the lack of quality and the human resource development ministry has been looking at means, including the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, to improve the quality.

The government has also decided to set up schools in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode and has planned the setting up of 2,500 such schools this way, of the 6,000 model schools to be set up in the next few years.