Summary
It may be sacrilegious to ask such a question given that averaging 90 per cent marks in board examinations is now passe. To ask that of India's top private schools is to prepare ground for certain excommunication. For, aren't these schools the thought leaders, the role models whose ideas and practices set the pace for others? Isn't poor quality the preserve of government-run schools? Isn't our standard of education, especially in English medium schools in major metros, among the best in the world and possibly the reason why India is fast emerging as a knowledge superpower?
Those who thought so, and most of us did, must get ready for an absolute shocker. The results of a major survey of students in 142 of India's top private schools spread across five metros made exclusively available to India Today reveals a frightening gap in learning in key subjects. Worse, when their performance was compared to students in 43 other countries, Indian schools fared well below international levels. The survey, one of the largest of its kind involving 32,000 students in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata, was conducted jointly by Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (founded by Bangalore-based software giant Wipro) and Educational Initiatives (EI), a reputed educational research organisation headquartered in Ahmedabad. EI's Managing Director Sridhar Rajagopalan admits that when the study was conceived it was essentially to find out how well students were learning. They didn't expect to come up with such disquieting results about the quality of education being imparted in India's top schools.See the full content of this document
Extract
What's Wrong with Our Teaching?
For the survey, the EI-Wipro team devised a series of tests to study whether the students in classes IV, VI and VIII understood key concepts in English, Mathematics and Science. Apart from multiple- choice questions that were devised to test their learning achievements, their writing competence was also put to test. A secondary study was conducted to gather insights into just how much students retain and develop their knowledge as they move to higher classes. To compare their learning abilities with those of children in other countries, questions were also taken from an international assessment study for which performance...
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