55% class 3 students can't order numbers, 46% class 6 students struggle with basic math tables, PARAKH survey reveals learning gaps

Time of India

6 days ago

NEW DELHI: Only 55 per cent of Class 3 students can arrange numbers up to 99 in ascending or descending order while only 53 per cent of them in Class 6 know tables up to 10, a Ministry of Education (MoE) survey has found.
The Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development (PARAKH) Rashtriya Sarvekshan, formerly known as the National Achievement Survey (NAS), was conducted on December 4 last year, covering 21,15,022 students from both government and private schools in Grades 3, 6 and 9 across 74,229 schools in 781 districts, spanning 36 states and Union Territories (UTs).
The survey said 1,15,022 children from the three grades were assessed and 2,70,424 teachers and school leaders responded through questionnaires.
According to the report, only 55 per cent of students in Class 3 can arrange numbers up to 99 in ascending or descending order while 58 per cent of the students can perform addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers.
In Class 6, only 53 per cent of students understand and visualise arithmetic operations and the relationships among them, know addition and multiplication tables at least up to 10 and apply the four basic operations on whole numbers to solve daily life problems.
In Class 6, an additional subject 'The World Around Us', which covers environment and society, was introduced alongside Language and Mathematics. Students scored lowest in Mathematics (46 per cent), while Language averaged 57 per cent and The World Around Us scored 49 per cent nationally.
According to MoE officials, instances where less than 50 per cent of students were able to answer correctly indicate learning gaps.
"These learning gaps highlight the need for focused interventions to strengthen students' skills, refine instructional strategies, and provide additional learning support. Addressing these areas effectively will help improve overall student learning outcomes in the nation," an official said.
In the case of Class 3, central government schools recorded the lowest performance in Mathematics.
Similarly, in the case of Class 6, government-aided and state government schools showed weaker performance, especially in Mathematics.
In Class 9, students from the Central Government schools performed the best across all subjects, with a clear lead in Language. Private schools followed in Science and Social Science but showed lower scores in Mathematics.
State government and government-aided schools recorded similar outcomes, with the lowest performance observed in Mathematics. Language was the highest-scoring subject for all school types, while Mathematics consistently remained the weakest.
A significant rural-urban divide was also observed. While Class 3 students in the rural areas performed better in both Mathematics and Language, children of Classes 6 and 9 in the urban areas outperformed their rural counterparts across all subjects.
"Moving beyond the assessment itself, the next phase of this initiative is focused on enabling systemic action. To facilitate this, a comprehensive multi-level strategy has been planned to translate the findings of the PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024 into meaningful actions," School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar said in the report.
"This includes a phased dissemination of data through workshops at the national, regional, state, and district levels. These workshops will focus not only on understanding the survey results but also on preparing district-specific roadmaps, where roles and responsibilities are clearly defined," he added.
PARAKH is tasked with framing assessment guidelines for all boards to help remove disparities in the scores of the students enrolled with different state boards.
The NAS, which assesses the competencies developed by students in the third, fifth and eighth grades is conducted every three years. The last NAS was conducted in 2021.
In language, girls performed slightly higher than boys in Class 3. Girls got an average score of 65 per cent while boys got a score of 63 per cent. Both girls and boys achieved the same score of 60 per cent in Mathematics.
Notably, due to alignment with the NEP 2020 stages, only Grade 3 scores remain comparable across the three cycles of National Achievement Survey (now PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan) in 2017, 2021 and 2024 as it is the common grade assessed in all three cycles.
Comparison of Grade 6 and 9 scores with Grade 5 and 8 scores from previous rounds of NAS is likely to result in spurious conclusions due to a change in the structure of the large-scale assessment.
While the national average in 2024 lags slightly behind 2017 levels, many states and UTs have surpassed their past performances with an all-time high in 2024, demonstrating strong recovery and successful learning interventions. These include Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
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