Ram M Sundaram By

COIMBATORE: A survey conducted by the Education Department in State-funded schools across Tamil Nadu has indicated that reading skills of rural students are better than that of their urban counterparts.

The block-wise survey was conducted under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) to analyse the ability of students in government and aided schools to read Tamil, English and Mathematics (formulae calculation). The survey was conducted in a total of 385 blocks with 61,16,793 students from classes two to five in 31,198 government and government-aided schools at primary level, and with 36,80,471 students from classes VI to VIII from 12,906 schools for upper primary level, during the months of August and September. To assess the language skills, a question paper with 25 one-mark questions was prepared by the respective Block Resource Teachers, based on a model paper provided by the Chennai Head Office. Class-appropriate questions were asked.

For example, a Class II student was asked to combine two words, fill in the blanks, sentence completion and one-line answers for text book and general questions.

For higher classes, these questions were replaced with complex sentence matching, rearranging jumbled sentences and five-line answers. The final survey report has brought out the fact that rural students fare better than urban students in reading language.

The survey has also revealed that reading skills of students in English from the city blocks of Chennai, Coimbatore, Tirupur and Cuddalore are below the State average of 50 to 60 per cent. From rural blocks in the same districts, this is, however, around 60 to 70 per cent. The same scenario prevails in several other districts of Tamil Nadu. While seven out of the total 15 blocks in Coimbatore outside the city were rated 80 per cent in Tamil reading, two blocks within the city have a rating of 65 per cent.