In as many as 443 of 586 rural districts, less than 50% of students in Grades VI-VIII knew how to carry out basic division, the Annual Status of Education Report, 2018 revealed.
Learning levels measured by knowledge of division and the ability to read simple texts remained low across India.
The scatter diagram below shows the wide gulf between the top six States and others in learning levels.
On the horizontal axis, the percentage of Class VI-VIII students who could carry out simple division is plotted.
On the vertical axis, the percentage of Class VI-VIII students who could read Grade II-level text is plotted.
States are coloured based on their geographical location.
It can be seen that on average, only about 41% of the students in Classes VI-VIII can perform division
- Students in Manipur & Mizoram had good learning levels while Meghalaya,Tripura & Assam had the worst
- Students in Bihar fared badly in reading, but had better maths skills. This trend was also seen to an extent in Tamil Nadu
- Haryana, Punjab and Himachal were among the best in both aspects. J&K, M.P. and W.B. were among the worst
- In Punjab, none of the districts had worse reading levels or maths skills than the national average (see Table)
The table below shows rural districts in each State with poor reading skills (the reading levels of students in these districts was lower than the national average) and poor math skills (lower than the national average).