Learning achievement of third and fifth graders in English, Nepali and Mathematics subjects has been below 50 percent, says a government study, calling into question how well schools, both public and private, are imparting education to the children.

The findings were made public on Friday by the Education Review Office (ERO) under the Ministry of Education, which had carried out the study among over 78,000 students—both from public and private schools—of 23 districts.

The ERO has been carrying out the performance study of school level students since 2011, and it has been found that learning achievement of students has decreased by 14 percentage points in the last three years. The first such report was made public in 2012.

Among the third graders, 33,863 students from 1,542 public and private schools were involved in the study, and the results show their learning achievement in Nepali to be 52 percent and 45 percent in Mathematics. In 2012, learning achievement of third graders was found to be 63 percent in Nepali and 60 percent in Mathematics. The findings paint even a bleaker picture for the fifth graders who were involved in tests of Nepali, Mathematics and English subjects.

Learning achievement of 40,015 students from 1,543 schools was found to be 46 percent in Nepali, 48 percent in Mathematics and 47 percent in English.

“This shows the teaching-learning process in schools has not been as effective as desired,” said ERO Director Lekhnath Poudel on Friday at a programme organised to make public the findings of study.

According to the report, students from the Mid-Western Development Region fared the worst while those from Kathmandu Valley performed the best. 

“We also found that children of educated mothers are far better compared to those whose mothers are illiterate,” said Gopal Bhattarai, deputy director at ERO.

Girls outdo boys

A study by the Education Review Office (ERO) may have found learning achievement of students to be poor, but when it comes to girl students, their performance was comparatively better, “which is quite an encouraging sign”, said ERO Director Lekhnath Poudel on Friday.

“We have seen quite an improvement in the performance of girl students,” said Poudel. “Girl students of Grade III and Grade V have outdone boys this time,” added Poudel.

Average learning achievement of girl students of Grade III in Nepali has been found to be 54 percent whereas it is 51 percent among boys. For fifth graders, girls’ learning achievement in Maths is 50pc compared to 48pc among boys.