: Opinion: Focus on quality of education #IndiaNEWS #News By Venkatanarayana Motkuri Telangana, once considered an educationally backward region, is now a progressive State in the same domain. Almost

Opinion: Focus on quality of education #IndiaNEWS #News
By Venkatanarayana Motkuri
Telangana, once considered an educationally backward region, is now a progressive State in the same domain. Almost all of its 6-14 years-age children are attending schools, near universalisation.
My estimate based on the unit-record data of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS-III) 2019-20 shows nearly 99. 5% of the children in the State in 6-14 years of age are attending schools.
The latest annual rounds of UDISE or Unified District Information System for Education (2020-21) and AISHE or All India Survey on Higher Education (2019-20) indicate that gender parity has been achieved in school as well as in higher education in Telangana. Social group and regional disparities are minimised to the least ever.
Correspondingly, the education infrastructure, ie, number of schools and colleges available for the population, is found to be relatively better in Telangana when compared with other States in India. Although quality of education remains a cause for concern all over India as well as in Telangana, the progress in the State is far better in terms of quantitative expansion and the reach out of school and higher education even to the most disadvantaged section of society.
Schooling Vs Illiteracy
With solid evidence, the hard fact is that the illiteracy rate in Telangana is higher than not only the national average but also of many other States in the country. In fact, it is one of the highest among the States. An estimate based on the PLFS-III shows that 28. 5% of the Telangana population (7 years and above) is illiterate while the all-India average is 21. 2%. Even the States considered backward have relatively lower illiteracy rates than Telangana. For example, Madhya Pradesh has an illiteracy rate of 23. 3%, Odisha, 23. 9%, UP, 26. 2%, Bihar, 27. 5% and Rajasthan, 28. 3%.
However, it is not a contradictory phenomenon when an educationally progressive State has a high illiteracy rate. It is possible when one views the progress in education in terms of the current attendance rate in school and college-age population which, in fact, saw faster growth in the recent past. The illiteracy rate, on the other hand, is a cumulative one affected by historical neglect of primary education for a long period.
A birth cohort of the population which missed the first chance during their primary school age to attend formal schooling and get primary education would not get a second chance of the same thereafter and hence remains illiterate throughout their life. In Telangana, it is disturbing to note the illiteracy of the surviving birth cohorts (especially those prior to the 1990s), who lost their chance to attain primary education when they were in school-age owing to various reasons, related to demand and supply factors of education.

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