As reading levels decline, girls emerge all-rounders

The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on Friday reveals that the Gender Parity Index (2013-14) has shown that there is a marked improvement in girls’ education, with parity having been achieved between girls and boys at almost all levels of education. 

The downside is that declining educational outcomes were reflected in lower reading levels in both public and private sector schools. 

Citing Annual Status of Education Report 2014, the survey states that there is a sharp decline between 2007 and 2014 in the number of children in Standard V who can even read a textbook of Standard II, in both government and private schools. In other words, there are now fewer Class V boys who could even read book of Class II. 

The survey states that the Government has launched  “Digital Gender Atlas for Advancing Girl’s Education in India” last year to help identify low-performing geographic pockets for girls, particularly from marginalised groups. 

A number of scholarship schemes to encourage enrolment and learning levels among different groups are in operation. The National Scholarship Portal, a single window system for various types of scholarship schemes administered by different ministries and departments has been introduced under the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode. 

During 2015-16, about 90 lakh minority students are to be benefited under the pre-matric, post-matric and merit-cum-means scholarship schemes, while about 23.21 lakh SC students benefited under pre-matric, 56.30 lakh under post-matric and 3,354 under the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Post-matric and 3354 under the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship, the survey states.