Only half the number of children in Classes 3 to 5 in rural Tamil Nadu can read a Class 1 textbook in their mother tongue, and only 31% of children in Classes 6 to 8 can do division. The findings of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released by non-government organization Pratham Foundation show that the learning levels of children in rural parts of the state are poor, and much lower than the national average.

As much as 53.4% of children in Class 1 can't identify alphabets in their mother tongue, while 34.2 % are able to identify letters, 10.3% can read words and less than 2% can read their class textbooks. The rate of children in Class 3 in private schools who can read a Class 1 level textbook has decreased since 2012, so has the rate of Class 5 children who can read a Class 2 level textbook since five years ago. Arithmetic skills of children have also declined.

In her article 'The first step' analyzing the learning outcome of children, ASER Centre director Rukmini Banerji said that serious discussions must be held to understand curriculum expectations in Class 1. "At age 5, children's ability to learn needs to be supported well, but in most states the Class 1 curriculum covers a great deal of content very quickly, so that many children are left behind even before they have started," she said.

Banerji said despite the RTE Act's insistence on completing the syllabus on time, the goal of the first year in school should be considered not as a race to finish all chapters in the textbook, but to enable all children to reach the learning objectives that have been decided on. It is important to help parents and teachers understand the learning goals well so they can work together to enable children to achieve these goals. "The goals need to be within the reach of a majority of all children enrolled in Class 1," she said.

The state, however, has made a slight improvement when it comes to meeting other RTE indicators when it comes to infrastructure and meeting the pupil-teacher ratio and classroom-teacher ratio norms. The number of schools that have the required number of toilets has increased, but the number that meets the drinking water requirement has gone down compared to last year. The state has always done well in terms of enrolment rates.

The number of government school students attending private tuitions has been going down steadily since 2009; this year there has been a sharp drop in the number of children in private schools joining tuitions. Overall, the report found that 13.1% of students in rural parts take tuitions to improve their academic performance. Teachers in government and aided schools in the state are banned from taking private tuitions, and the state recently issued a stern warning to those who continued to do it. Volunteers visited 553 schools in rural parts of the state to conduct the survey.Half of Class 3-5 kids in TN can't read Class 1 text
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