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Schools in Northern states lead in the number of instructional days compared to rest of India
DISE data for 2014-15 has revealed that Indian states differ hugely in terms of working days of state-funded primary schools. Kerala is at the bottom of the table with an average 192 instructional days in an academic year while Jharkhand stands at the top of the table with 249 days.
Data compiled by the District Information System for Education (DISE) for 2014-15 has revealed that in terms of working days in state-funded primary schools, Indian states display a huge disparity. Kerala is at the bottom of the table with an average 192 instructional days in an academic year while Jharkhand stands at the top of the table with 249 days.
Overall, northern states displayed a tendency to have more working days with Punjab (243), Bihar (241), Haryana (236) and Uttarakhand (234) all crossing 230 days while North Eastern states find themselves at the bottom of the table with Meghalaya (192), Nagaland (199), Mizoram (200) all hovering at 200 or lower.
These statistics indicate a varying difference in workload of government teachers across India. At the same time, these figures also reveal the difference in the effectiveness of public education system and learning outcomes in different states as researchers have linked higher workload with higher teacher absenteeism.
However, the collective average of the nation stood at 226 for primary schools which confirms to the recommended 220-230 days recommended under the national curriculum framework guidelines. The same figure for the US is 180 days and has been under criticism for a long time as experts have equated more instructional days with greater learning.
Research into the reasons for the differences in the number of days revealed that the number of working days a teacher clocks in depends on climatic conditions and different state holidays for schools. These are besides other reasons which make it compulsory for the schools to shut down for example, political pressure in Maharashtra for Ganapati holidays, natural calamities such as annual floods in Assam, weather and law and order situation in case of Kashmir and a few northeastern states.
"Actual instructional days could be less than the government figures as we don't know how much teaching takes place in the school even on those days," says Farida Lambay, the co-founder of the NGO Pratham.
An official from the Maharashtra education department admitted that even exam days and half day festival celebrations are counted as instructional days besides the period where teachers are on long leave.
Interestingly, the rationale for more instructional days applies uniformly to both, children from poorer families as well as well off. Educationists say that children from poorer background need more learning days as they already have lesser stimulation at home. The logic for well off families is over-stimulation in the form of TV, computer games etc. makes it difficult for the children to resume the flow of learning.
The rationale behind 220-230 school days is that is food for the teachers and students both. This time period gives teachers to teach in an unhurried manner and students enough time to assimilate the content. This relieves them of unnecessary stress which may otherwise lead to stress and consequently absenteeism.
Educationist Dr Arundhati Chavan from SNDT women's university, who also heads Teachers and Parents Association shares a different point of view. She feels that more instructional days don't necessarily translate into better learning outcomes. Since most government teachers are required to do non-teaching work as well, a lot of their school time may be lost.
Lambay correlates links the higher number of schooling days with absenteeism of teachers, thus translating into lost learning and lower learning outcomes for students in Jharkhand.
A recent World Bank study has quantified the cost of teacher absenteeism in rural schools to the Indian government to be approximately $1.5 billion. This figure is 60% of the entire revenue collected from the education cess used to fund the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.
Read the original story by Kanchan Srivastava at www.dnaindia.com
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