COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BIHAR AND KERALA AT ELEMENTARY LEVEL

AMIT KUMAR AMAN*

Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character

or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society

deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.

According to Pestalozzi, education is a constant process of development of innate powers of man which

are natural, harmonious and progressive. Since independence, the central and state governments have

been expanding the provision of primary formal and non-formal education to realize the goal of

Universalisation of Elementary Education (UEE). The challenge now is to sustain and deepen current

reforms in education and encourage local planning and management of strategies for expanding and

improving primary education. Now elementary education has become fundamental right in India, Article

26(1) of Indian constitution proclaims that every child in the age group 6-14 has a right to free and

compulsory elementary education. So we cannot ignore the importance of elementary education.

Therefore this article tries to compare between Kerala and Bihar based on the latest data made available

by NUEPA, which will help in understanding of weaknesses and strengths of Bihar and Kerala.

*Research Scholar, P.G. Department of Education, Patna University, Patna

Bihar is situated in the northern part of India with an average literacy of 47% out of which male

literacy is 59.7% and female literacy is only 33.1%. Till date the state has not achieved the goal

of Universalization of Elementary Education (UEE) and considered as one of the most

educationally backward state of India. On the other hand Kerala has shown remarkable

improvement in education despites all the barriers the state posses a literacy rate of 90.90%

out of which male literacy is 94.2% and female literacy rate is 87.7%.There is significant

progress in enrolment in the elementary schools mainly because of the different innovative

methods adopted under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) So many of attractive facilities like free

textbook, uniform and free mid day meal(MDM) draws more new entrants to the school

education system. Two terms, repetition rate and dropout rate are always used at elementary

level. Here repetition rate is to repeat in the same grade and dropout rate is to leave school

Hence if we compare the repetition rate it is 6.7 % children repeat a class in Bihar at Primary

level in contrast to 3.03 % children of Kerala in the year 2007-08.This means that a good

number of students in Bihar do not complete a particular grade. Even situation is worst if we

compare dropout rate in the year 2005-06, Bihar having almost five times higher dropout rate

in comparison to Kerala. This clearly indicates that there is something wrong with the Bihar

elementary school education system. If we compare the infrastructure of these two states the

average numbers of classrooms in primary schools is exactly three times higher in Kerala with

respect to Bihar. It shows still Bihar is struggling in providing adequate number of classrooms

for their children in their primary schools. Now the most important aspect of the education

system i.e. Teacher, Both the states have been recruited teachers at elementary level; the

average number of teachers in a primary school in Bihar is 3.8 where as in Kerala it is 6.4 also
the average pupil teacher ratio at the primary level is 24 students per teacher in Kerala and

where as in Bihar is much higher i.e. 55. As for as appointment of female teachers is concerned

Kerala has appointed more female teachers i.e.73.72% and Bihar limited to only 37.11% .This

shows in Bihar there is still need to appoint more number of teachers at elementary level to

provide quality education to our children. Providing quality education there is need of quality

training which another problem is. First of all in Bihar at elementary level there is dearth of

professionally trained teachers, shows the data i.e. in the year 2008-09 only 33.48% of the

teachers are professionally trained in comparison to 91.14 % teachers of Kerala are

professionally trained. Also in terms of the percentage distribution of teachers received

In- service training during 2008-09 was only 20.41% in Bihar whereas 70.93 % for Kerala.

Therefore it is clear from the data made available by DISE,

NUEPA 2008-09, that in which aspect Bihar is lagging behind and what are the weaknesses?

Hence for the state like Bihar there is much need to be done in terms of infrastructure,

appointments of professionally trained teachers and their time to time In-service training etc.

because these are the weaker section of our elementary school education system.

REFERENCES:
1. (2008):Annual Status of Education Report (Rural)-2008, Retrieve from www.pratham.org (RELEASED
IN MARCH 2009)

2. Census of India2001, Summary: Bihar State

3.Census of India2001, Summary: Kerala State
4. Mehta, A.C. (2007): Elementary Education in India, Where do we stand? District Elementary Education
Report Card 2007-08, NUEPA

5.Flash statistics,DISE,NUEPA,2008-09