The children fared no better in math (or arithmetic, the second of the famous three ‘R’s of education) or English comprehension. For example, the ability of Class VIII students to divide numbers has dropped further. The proportion of all Class VIII students in rural India who can divide a three-digit number by a single-digit one has dipped to 43.2% in 2016 from 44.2% in 2014. And while 32% of children in Class III could read simple English words, up by 3.5 percentage points over 2009, in Class V, only one out of every four students could read a English sentence.