RURAL ACTION COMPONENT

Analysis and Scope of Improvement in Upper Primary School Education

Submitted To:

Fundamental and Action Research Foundation

Submitted By:
Palwinder Singh, Tushar Doshi, Bhaskar BV

Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA)

Rural Action Component- “Analysis and Scope of
Improvements for Upper Primary Schools”
Bhaskar BV, Tushar Doshi, Palwinder Singh.

Post Graduate Programme in Rural Management- 40 (Batch), Institute of Rural Management

Anand (Gujarat)

Email: p40211@irma.ac.in, p40090@irma.ac.in, p39130@irma.ac.in

Abstract: This paper deals with the study of Upper primary school education quality, its working
and through analysis deriving solutions to the problems that are practical and easy to implement.
The analysis is done on the lines of NITI Aayog’s school quality education index indicators and
some new indicators are also added in the index calculation that are found suitable for the region
in study. The study was conducted in the village named “Jorai”, Block- Gyanpur, Bhadohi,
Uttar Pradesh. Total four schools have been taken for indicators calculation in which 3 were
government schools and one was a private.

Introduction: Education is undoubtedly the most important aspect in the growth of the nation
and with the requirement of demographic dividend that is untapped in our country, its base forms
at the school education level. The average age of India is expected to be 29 years in next two years
and more and more youth will come to the market requiring jobs, skills etc. The prime imperative
task is to look into the aspects and finding ways to optimize the present education system that can
eventually produce a quality demographic dividend for the country and the world. As per NITI
Aayog’s school quality education index outcomes, learning, access, infrastructure-facilities, equity
and governance aided services are the outcomes in which there are 64 factors that are computed
by data collection and finally an overall school quality index is calculated. An aptitude test was
conducted in one government school and private school for upper primary school classes and data
is collected and segregated for analysis. For other indicators, one elementary level and a secondary
school is surveyed for data collection. According to the Cambridge International Global Education
Census, 74% of Indian upper primary students choose extra tuitions in mathematics and English
and 3% of the students play more than six hours a week. After the analysis of our results and other
findings of NITI Aayog, we can infer that the major focus of Indian education system is on
completing the syllabus and cracking the exams. The creativity and conceptual knowledge is
lacking in the current scenario. Digitization is a way forward as enabling lessons through AI and
automation, it will encourage self-study if the device is available with the student. Virtual learning
is also a great step as it creates a visualization effect in the learning process that can not be done
in the other case. Besides this, to encourage students to attend the school regularly and have focus,
creativity is required to be inculcated in the students through group tasks, projects, regular sports
events. A greater interest in the students is found in our study, if they are given something
productive to make or that is related to technology. Children are actually found interested in the
technology and want to create stuff that can make a difference to the world and in their lives. Major
channels and platforms of digital education are in English, this is the biggest hinderance found in
the course of virtual learning. Some apps, platforms are also found with Hindi content that are
shared in our suggestions and conclusion part. But there are numerous other factors that makes
learning a creative affair like teaching skills, less student-teacher ratio, extra classes for weaker
students, segmentation of content according to performance of students. We analyzed different
data collected and findings are presented in the literature review.

Literature Review:
(1) Methodology: As per the requirement of the indicators, data from various schools is collected.
For equity outcomes, an aptitude test with sections namely: English, Mathematics, Reasoning,
Hindi with maximum marks of 5 in each section was conducted in class 6, 7 and 8 in
government upper primary school, Jorai and in Gyanodaya Shiksha Sansthan. The other
schools in study were Adarsh Government School and Government Inter College for secondary
school data collection. The scaled score is calculated as per methodology followed by NITI
Aayog and weighted average is calculated and in the end a overall performance index was
calculated for the village Jorai.

(2) School Education Quality Index Analysis:

 Learning Outcomes:
This is an important indicator as improvements in foundational learning are positively
correlated with improved enrolment, retention and completion rates at higher levels of education
as well as with improved labor market outcomes. Improved outcomes in foundational learning are
also related to improved health-seeking behavior and reduced delinquency. Class 6 performed the
best in this outcome with a scaled score of 40.22 and 43.1 in language and mathematics
respectively, while class 8 performed dismally low with scaled score of 6.3 and 10.9 in language
and mathematics respectively showing weakening level of learning with the increase in class
standards, however there are many outliers in the data. The overall data of the
learning outcomes:
 Raw Max. Min. Scaled Weight * Scaled
Factors/Indicators Outcome Score Weight Value Value Score Value
Average score in class 6
(Language) Learning 2.011 100 5 0 0.4022 40.22
Average score in class 6 (Maths) Learning 2.155 100 5 0 0.431 43.1
Average score in class 7
(Language) Learning 0.641 50 5 0 0.1282 6.41
Average score in class 7 (Maths) Learning 1.179 50 5 0 0.2358 11.79
Average score in class 8
(Language) Learning 1.054 30 5 0 0.2108 6.324
Average score in class 8 (Maths) Learning 1.833 30 5 0 0.3666 10.998

 Access Outcomes:

Total number of pupils in a particular stage of school education enrolled either in the
corresponding stage or the next stage of school education expressed as a percentage of
the corresponding population. Transition rates from different classes are find in this outcome where
major problem is found in upper primary to secondary transition with approximately 69%
transition happening in case of boys and 45% happening in case of girls due to factors lower
incomes, less awareness of scholarships and failure rates and even loosening of interest. The
overall weighted scaled score of is shown as follows:

Factors/Indicators Outcome Raw Weight Max. Min. Scaled Weight * Scaled

Score Value Value Score Value
Elementary level net enrolment
ratio Access 0.98 20 1 0 0.98 19.6
Secondary level net enrolment
ratio Access 0.67 20 1 0 0.67 13.4
Primary to upper primary
transition rate Access 0.96 20 1 0 0.96 19.2
Upper primary to secondary
transition rate Access 0.68 20 1 0 0.68 13.6

 Infrastructure Outcomes:

MHRD developed and operationalized a Computer Aided Learning (CAL) program under the
Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme, with the objective of integrating computers into classrooms
as a learning tool. No school is found to be using effectively the CAL as two schools have the
facility in Jorai but not using for the virtual learning purpose and also students response is also
found low due to lower understanding of the content shown. Library, vocational education
conditions can also be assessed from the data.
The data of this outcome is as follows:
 Raw Max. Min. Scaled Weight *
Factors/Indicators Outcome Score Weight Value Value Score Scaled Value
Percentage of schools having computer Infra and
aided learning Facilities 0 5 1 0 0 0
Percentage of schools with computer lab Infra and
facility Facilities 0.5 5 1 0 0.5 2.5
Percentage of schools with library/book Infra and
room Facilities 0.5 5 1 0 0.5 2.5
Percentage of schools covered by Infra and
vocational education Facilities 0.25 10 1 0 0.25 2.5

 Equity:

Ensuring equity in learning outcomes is a powerful predicator of the quality of education being
provided to the more vulnerable sections of society. Here, equity does not only signify equity in
input-related indicators, like provision of entitlements, but is more so reflective of equity in
learning outcomes, i.e., the difference in the learning outcomes of children from vulnerable
sections. The equity outcomes shows that SC and general category have some differences in
performance in language section but have considerable less gap in case of mathematics. As OBC
population is in majority in the village, so equity outcomes are majorly affected and dominated by
this community but not a major performance difference can be found after reviewing the data.
In case of boys and girls, girls outperformed almost in all classes in language test but in
mathematics and reasoning boys have an edge over girls. The outliers performance also made the
results little one sided but still a inference on the gender performance rating can be assessed by
this. The whole data with sc-obc, sc-general, obc-general, boys-girls difference in performance is
assessed and weighted scaled scores are also calculated as shown:
 Difference of
Difference of performance b/w SC performance b/w OBC
and general category and general category
English Outcome Raw Score English Outcome Raw Score
Class 6 Equity 3.75 Class 6 Equity 2.1
Class7 Equity 0 Class7 Equity 0
Class 8 Equity 1.5833333 Class 8 Equity 1.5833333
Maths Maths
Class 6 Equity 1 Class 6 Equity 0.4
Class7 Equity 0 Class7 Equity 0
Class 8 Equity 2.8333333 Class 8 Equity 2.7666667
Difference of
Difference of performance b/w performance b/w Boys
Private and Government students and Girls students
English English
Class 6 Equity 0.0845865 Class 6 Equity 3.15
Class7 Equity 0.276211 Class7 Equity 0.4761905
Class 8 Equity 0.3731884 Class 8 Equity 1.4166667
Maths Maths
Class 6 Equity 0.0605263 Class 6 Equity 1
Class7 Equity 0.052067 Class7 Equity 0.2380952
Class 8 Equity 0.0668643 Class 8 Equity 2.4357143
Difference of performance b/w SC
and OBC Reasoning
English Class 6 Equity 0.28
Class 6 Equity 1.65 Class7 Equity 0.45
Class7 Equity 0.1904762 Class 8 Equity 0.19
Class 8 Equity 0
Maths
Class 6 Equity 0.6
Class7 Equity 1.9047619
Class 8 Equity 0.066666

 Governance Process Aided Outcomes:

This outcome includes teacher-student attendance data, teacher eligibility, norms, government
working in education, transparency etc. Student attendance on an average is found to be 71% and
the reasons given by students are found to be lack of interest, unavailability of school uniform,
work at home etc. Teacher attendance is not found an issue with more tha 92% attendance recorded
on an average, only peculiar factor is that the education of teacher is not matched with the subjects
they teach, around 33% of upper primary school teachers are found to be teaching subjects not in
their domain. The elaborated data is as follows:
Factors and Indicators
Weight
Raw Max. Min. Scaled * Scaled
Students Attendance Outcome Score Weight Value Value Score Value
Governance
Percentage of average daily attendance process 0.71 30 1 0 0.71 21.3
Teacher attendance
Governance
Percentage of average daily attendance process 0.9208 20 1 0 0.9208 18.416
Adequacy
Governance
Percentage of schools with single teacher process 0 10 1 0 0 0
Percentage of schools meeting RTE act Governance
teacher eligibility process 1 20 1 0 1 20
Percentage of teachers upper primary Governance
meeting subject teacher norms process 0.6667 10 1 0 0.6667 6.667
Percentage of secondary schools with Governance
teachers for all core subjects. process 1 10 1 0 1 10
Governance
Percentage of schools with principals process 1 20 1 0 1 20
Percentage of positions filled in beginning of year
Governance
Scerts process 1 5 1 0 1 5
Governance
Diets process 1 10 1 0 1 10
Percentage of teachers provided with Governance
training process 1 20 1 0 1 20
Percentage of principals provided with Governance
training process 1 15 1 0 1 15
Schools evaluation
Percentage of schools completed self Governance
evaluation process 0.25 5 1 0 0.25 1.25
Percentage of schools with developmental Governance
plans process 0.5 15 1 0 0.5 7.5
Recruitment
Average no. of teachers recruited through Governance
transparent process process 0.67 20 1 0 0.67 13.4
No. of principals recruited through merit Governance
based selection system process 1 20 1 0 1 20

The overall performance index of Jorai comes out to be 0.593. If we compare the index rating with
the Uttar Pradesh’s overall performance index i.e. 0.465, then we can infer that the governance
section and the access outcomes made the region’s rating a better one as compared to state.

Suggestions and Conclusion:

(1) Digitization: With increased internet penetration having world’s third largest internet
users, the scope of digital education also very high with it. However poor internet speed,
electricity is creating hinderance in this process in a basic level. If we dig down, 90% digital
content is in English language online and for digital learning, students are required to be
made aware about the usage of computers, applications. With this teachers are also required
to be trained periodically for teaching in virtual world, as all subjects are required to be
made available digitally, for that only computer teacher teaching virtually that is found in
Jorai schools will not suffice. Content creativity is also required that will create interest.
The training module is required to be changed for the teachers. The digital content that is
available online which is Hindi medium friendly are like (On Youtube):
1. Bodhguru
2. Eduquest
3. SuccessCDs Education
But the problem is that the penetration of smart phones, computers in rural areas is very
meagre. As in jorai government schools, we conducted a questionnaire on internet know
how and smart phones, the results were found as:

No. of students having access to smartphones at home

Boys Girls
Percentage 0.33 0.23
No. of students having know how of applications
Boys Girls
Percentage 0.56 0.38
No. of students could operate a e-learning app (Test conducted)
Boys Girls
Percentage 0.2 0.15

The learning app Google Bolo is a AI based mobile application used for English
vocabulary, sentence recitation improvement. Students can access and can speak in the app
and app will process it and correct the speech if something is wrong. The app is in Beta
version but the concept is ground breaking as children are finding it interesting and in the
school we conducted survey the students are able to use it after some guidance.

(2) Creative Activities:

For reducing absenteeism and creating interest in schools, we did a mock automation
science activity with students in which a automated relay system was developed by the
children of class-8, the inclination of today’s children is towards technology majorly and
it is also good as AI and machine learning is going to raise the scale by 60% in India and
can become a business of 177 billion dollars worldwide, so the basis is required to be made
at the school level to make students aware of the coming future. Besides this, a periodic
 sports tournament is required to be organized that should be a formal one, which is found
missing in the present government schools. Group tasks, projects should be given monthly
to students so that they can make things that will come in their higher studies, getting
insights of different higher studies aspects practically can make the choice of students a
wise one and can help students finding their interests beforehand.

(3) English Improvement:

Issue of cramming and syllabus completion makes the English speaking and
comprehension skills weak in the present scenario as analyzed. Daily word of the day
should be included in the prayer time and a short story telling by the students in English
should be started in the same time also. Several youtube platforms for creative learning are
available like:
1. DSHOnline
2. AAS Vidyalaya
Google Bolo is also a great app for making children learn English in a creative
fashion.