Is it Surprising......

This is the news article in ‘Times of India, Mumbai’ edition today...

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“Students of private aided schools no better than BMC counterparts: Study”

Bhavika Jain & Hemali Chhapia TNN 

• 22% of children studying in classes I to VII in Mumbai’s civic schools can either not read their language of instruction or at the most recognize alphabets. The same percentage of standard I-VII students in the city’s private aided schools have no reading skills or can merely read alphabets 

• More than half the children in classes V-VII of BMC schools cannot read a story of the level of Std II. Two out of five students of the same classes in private aided schools too cannot read a story of the same level 

• Over half the children in municipal schools’ classes III-IV cannot subtract and 90% cannot divide. In the same standards of private aided schools, nearly half the students cannot subtract and 86% do not know how to divide

Popular belief suggests that private aided schools fare better than their municipal counterparts; and that the students of private institutions learn more and thus perform better than the pupils of civic schools. 

The conventional wisdom, as a micro-level survey shows, has got it wrong.

NGO 'Pratham' surveyed about 26,500 students of municipal schools and around 37,300 students of private aided schools across Mumbai. All the students were in classes I to VII.

Original news item links.

1.http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/05/23&PageLabel=1&EntityId=Ar00103&ViewMode=HTML

    2.   Details report

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=TOIM/2013/05/23&PageLabel=4&ForceGif=true&EntityId=Ar00400&ViewMode=HTML

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My View:

It is not surprising outcome of survey. Please note that this is not the survey report of remote area of India, but ‘Mumbai’ major metropolitan city of the country, the municipal corporation alone spends 2342 crores of Rupees annually on education.

Now, as paper notified, experts suggested, as usual, for better implementation of same old methods. If these suggestions are accepted,which may result in some more forms to fill may come out. 

The same is going on for more than one and half decade with my little knowledge.In my opinion, process repairing is not sufficient; 

Instead of spending money, students precious years of life time on a system which is not providing the required results, i suggest complete transformation of education system to make both teachers and students responsible for the learning outcomes.

First thing first, the transformation has to start from ‘fixed time, fixed syllabus’.

Your reactions are very much solicited.

It is not necessary to  repeati 'education is not adding some thing to the life, it is life by itself'.