Nearly half of class VI students struggle with reading; 63% of class IX fail basic math: Govt survey reveals

According to the Ministry of Education's PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan (formerly National Achievement Survey), 43% of Indian students in Class VI struggle to understand the main ideas in texts, while 63% of Class IX students find it difficult to recognize simple numerical patterns or grasp basic concepts such as fractions and integers. In what further highlights the scale of learning gaps in the country's education system, 54% of Class VI students are unable to compare whole numbers or read large numbers.

The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan, conducted in December last year, assessed 21,15,022 students from Grades III, VI and IX across 74,229 schools, both govt and private, in 781 districts spanning 36 states and union territories.

For instance, students struggled with tasks like identifying multiples of 7, powers of 3, prime numbers, and applying percentage and fraction concepts to daily-life problems. Science and social science learning was no better, with over 60% of Class IX students failing to meet minimum competency benchmarks. In science, students were unable to classify matter based on physical and chemical characteristics, describe changes in matter using the particulate nature of substances, or explain properties of a magnet.

Social science tests required students to gather and analyze information from maps, charts, and texts, as well as explain natural phenomena like climate and soil formation, but most did not reach the expected standards.

For Class VI students, the results were similarly troubling. In language skills, 43% struggled to use comprehension techniques such as inference, prediction, and visualization, and had difficulty understanding main ideas or drawing conclusions from reading material. Mathematics posed the greatest difficulty, with 54% unable to represent numbers using place value, compare whole numbers, or use the four basic operations to solve everyday problems.

At the foundational stage in Class III, only 55% of students could arrange numbers up to 99 in ascending or descending order, and just 58% could perform addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers. In mathematics, central govt schools recorded the lowest performance in this grade.

The study revealed that the rural-urban divide and gender gaps persist in critical areas. Central govt-run schools (Kendriya Vidyalayas) emerged as the best performers, yet even for them the data showed concerning trends. The survey also flagged wide inter-state variations. Among the top ten states, Punjab, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan figured consistently for all three grades. Conversely, J&K and Meghalaya featured on the list of ten worst-performing states across the three grades, with states like West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand being among poor performers for two grades.

(With TOI inputs)