Latest news with #NiranjanaradhyaVP
New Indian Express
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Fix dropout rate in high schools: PAFRE tells Karnataka government
BENGALURU: POINTING to the high dropout rate of 22.1% among high school students in Karnataka, which is much higher than the national average of 14.1%, the People's Alliance for Fundamental Right to Education (PAFRE) has written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, asking him to focus on solving 'long-term' problems in the education system instead of blaming officials for the poor SSLC results. PAFRE welcomed the CM's concern, expressed during a recent review meeting, over the fall in SSLC pass percentages, especially in backward regions like Kalyana Karnataka. However, the group said that reprimanding education officers alone won't help improve results. Instead, it stressed the need to improve the overall learning system from Class 1 to Class 10, especially in government and aided schools where most children come from poor and disadvantaged families. Chief convenor of the group Professor Niranjanaradhya VP explained that exam results are just the final stage and if children do not receive quality education and support from the beginning, expecting better results is unfair. He added that the current system does not give students the learning environment, teachers, and leadership. 'Karnataka's high school dropout rate must be addressed immediately if the government wants to see long-term improvements,' he said. The RTE group asked the state government to prepare a three-year action plan to bring all schools up to standard.
New Indian Express
04-05-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
Many reasons for SSLC centum spike: Experts
BENGALURU: Easy and predictable question paper, lenient evaluation and shortened syllabus were some of the major reasons why the state had a whopping 22 students scoring 625/625, with a dramatic jump from one last year. Experts, without downplaying the students' efforts, said that getting such a perfect score is very difficult, as the answer scripts would pass through layers of evaluation, specifically language papers, where marks are cut even for spelling mistakes, reducing the possibility of a perfect score. They argued that the whole learning process will be condensed to 'rote memorisation' rather than 'learning', just to appear among the toppers. Talking about the leniency in the questions and checking process this year, Shashi Kumar, the General Secretary of Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) said, 'Most of the papers were comparatively easy this year, except for Kannada, and the evaluation was also lenient. However, we also had a bunch of sincere students who studied hard this time.' Development educationist Professor Niranjanaradhya V P expressed concerns over the objectivity of evaluating theory-based exam papers, particularly those that include long and short-answer questions. He said that while multiple-choice questions (MCQs) have a clear and standardised marking process, the same cannot be said for subjective answers. 'In many cases, students are awarded full marks even for long-answer questions. On the surface, the evaluation appears to be lenient. However, it also heavily depends on the nature and understanding of the evaluator,' he said, highlighting the inconsistencies that may arise due to the lack of uniform assessment practices. An evaluator said, 'Reduction in syllabus has made it easier for the students to concentrate on fewer topics, helping them to score better this time. And along with that we took multiple extra classes and revision classes, helping them be thorough with the subjects'. 'However this time the questions were predictable, there were so many repeated questions from last year, except for Kannada which included questions from Hale Kannada (Old Kannada) which is quite challenging for the students. It's also that this time the correction was comparatively lenient,' she added.
