Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 27
Youth in Nagaland excel at reading skills but are average arithmeticians according to the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2017 released last week.
The report titled, ‘Beyond Basics’ was the twelfth annual report since 2005.
While the past reports highlighted that although almost all children are enrolled in school, many are not acquiring foundational skills like reading and basic arithmetic.
ASER 2017 focused on an older age group, youth who have moved just beyond the elementary school age - the first batch to pass out of class VIII after the implementation of the Right to Education Act, 2009. It covers youth aged 14-18 years all across rural India.
In Nagaland, it was conducted with 809 youth in 740 households in 50 villages in Kohima district.
However, it could be indicative of the trend across the state, as the district’s literacy rate of 85.2% is much higher than the state’s average of 79.6%. In other parameters, the district scores over others. For instance, while 71.1% of populace in the state is considered rural, only 54.8% are rural population in Kohima District.
As per the report, if Naga teens breezed through reading, basic mathematical calculations such as addition, subtraction, division and multiplication are big struggles.
Lesser arithmeticians
Out of total surveyed, only 30.4% of youth aged 14-18 could do division while 35.9% cloud do subtraction. Rounding up, 33.7% can recognize the number 99 and below.
The national average for division was 43.1%.
The youth, however, are quite proficient in doing ‘Daily Tasks’ as 77.5% could count money and 84.8% could tell the time.
Here again, they flunked in little harder tasks with only 42.2% and 48.7% of them able to add weights and tell hour & minutes respectively. In India, 56% could add weights in kilograms and 59.9% could tell time in minutes and hours correctly.
In common calculation, while 85.4% could do simple measuring of length, only 32.2% were able to do hard task of measuring length as against 39% nationally.
Applying unitary method and calculation of time were also hard task for them with only 37.7% and 30.5% of them managing to do the tasks respectively.
The national averages were 50% and 38.6% respectively.
In Nagaland, over 60%of them could manage a budget while over half of them (51.3%) could take purchase decision. But only 19.6% can apply a discount while a dismal 3% could calculate repayment. In India, 63.8% and 64.1% respectively could manage a budget and purchase decision respectively, while 37.7% could apply discount and 15.5% calculate repayment.
In Map and General Knowledge, 94% of them could recognise map of India while 60.6% could name India’s capital. 77.5% could name the state but only 55.8 could identify Nagaland on a map.
Reading Prowess: Interestingly, the youth in Nagaland are better readers in English than their own mother tongue. However, reading level as a whole was quite high. In reading level test up to Standard II level text, over 76% of them could read easily, similar with India’s average at around 76.6%. However, English reading prowess in Nagaland was much higher, with nearly 90% (88.2) able to read a sentence. The national average was 58.2%. But in terms of understanding what they read, it falls below the national average, as only 46.5% could read and understand at least 3 out 4 reading instructions, while the all India average was 53.3%.
Digital Knowledge: The mobile penetration was quite high with only 34.4% responding that they had never used a mobile. Access to internet was meanwhile low with 58.8 percent stating that they have never used internet. Half of them (50.8%) have never used a computer.
At this stage, participation in work is also quite low with only 27.7% of the youth saying that they had worked for 15 or more days in the last month, excluding household work.
In the case of financial participation of youth aged 14-18, while 50.4% had a bank account, only 15.3% had over used ATM and 23.1% had deposited/withdrawn money. A miniscule 2.5% had used internet banking.
Overall, the enrollment ratio of the youth (14-18 years) in Nagaland was quite high at 90.9% enrolled in Class XII or below and 1.6% in undergraduate level. Only 7.5% of them were not enrolled. But, again, below the national average of 93.4%
