4 days ago
Kerala students do better in Language than in Mathematics across grades, shows achievement survey
The Kerala results of the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan, formerly known as National Achievement Survey, have shown that the margin students in the State had over the national average has increased through the grades in Language but is not as consistent in Mathematics.
In Grade III, the average performance of students in Kerala in Language was 75%, against the national average of 64%, a difference of 11 percentage points. In Grade VI, the State average in Language was 76%, while the national average was 57%, a gap of 19 percentage points. The gap further increased to 20 percentage points in Grade IX with the students' average performance in the State at 74%, against the national average of 54%.
In Mathematics too, the State students' average is higher than the national average in all three Grades surveyed. However, the margin is not as consistent as in the case of Language. The 10% margin State students have over the national average in Mathematics in Grade III increases to 14% in Grade VI, but dips to 8% in Grade IX.
State students in Class III did better in some mathematical competencies such as sorting objects into groups and sub-groups based on more than one property (80% as compared to 68% national average), arranging number up to 99 in ascending or descending order (72% against 55% nationally), or identifying simple patterns in their surroundings, shapes, and numbers (86% State average to 69% national average).
However, they did not fare well when it came to recognising multiplication as repeated addition or division as equal sharing (53% against 54% national score). Only 57% could perform simple monetary transactions up to ₹100 (50% national average), and only 59% could recognise classify basic geometric shapes (50% national score).
In Grade VI, while their grasp of the Indian number system (71% against 54% nationally) or odd, even, square numbers, and cubes was good (69% against 49% national score), they struggled to carry out simple unit conversions (43% as compared to 38% nationally).
In Grade IX, students in the State only did slightly better than those countrywide when it came to application of percentage to solve problems (31% against 28% nationally), understanding whole numbers, real numbers, fractions, and integers and visualising them on the number line (36% against 31% nationally), or application of fractions (36% against national score of 31%).
Even when their scores were significantly higher than the national average, only 50% of them discover patterns in numbers such as multiples of seven or understand congruence or similarity in geometric shapes and only 49% could use formulae to determine area.
This highlights the need for special intervention in Mathematics, says State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Director Jayaprakash R.K. The SCERT plans to address the issue by focussing more on teacher training. It is also mulling getting subject experts who have prepared the new Mathematics textbooks as per the revised curriculum to communicate to teachers how to transact lessons in class so that students understand the logic behind a mathematical concept. This could be in the form of short videos that teachers could easily view on mobile phones, says Dr. Jayaprakash.
