Lens on rural-urban learning gaps

Bhubaneswar: Even as Odisha has performed better than the national average in the National Achievement Survey (NAS)-2021, a huge gap has come out in the learning outcomes of students between urban and rural areas and the gap widened in higher classes.
Children studying in private schools scored better in all subjects compared to those studying in government-run or government-aided schools in the state, revealed the National Achievement Survey-2021 report.
“Since the NAS test was conducted during the pandemic in November last year, schools were closed at that time and studies of kids were badly hit. While in urban areas, kids had access to online classes in rural areas most children were deprived of schooling. So, there is gap in their performance. The state government has been conducting extra classes and learning recovery plans to bridge the learning gap that occurred due to the pandemic,” said Samir Ranjan Dash, school and mass education minister.
As per the NAS report, students of rural areas are almost on a par with their urban counterparts in their learning abilities in mathematics, environment science and language at Class III level. The difference in the learning outcome of Class X students is huge. The maximum gap was in English among Class X students as the rural students scored 264 points of 500, while urban students scored 302.
Similarly, the learning gap in English was the highest among Class X students of government and private school with a difference of 63 points.
“The learning loss among children due to the pandemic is huge and has affected students of higher classes more than those in lower standards. Despite efforts of the government, the improvement is not reflected in the outcomes and the gap is huge in rural and urban areas. Since large number of private schools are located in urban areas it also added to the urban-rural gap in learning outcomes,” said educationist Pritish Acharya.
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