Much has been made of the Pratham report which evaluated the learning skills of students in rural India, and said, by and large, that private schools were better than government schools when it came to teaching students. Juxtaposed with the higher salaries in government schools, a case is then made out for private education substituting government education. The big exception to the rule, however, is West Bengal where the Pratham survey shows, government schools fare far better than private ones. If you look at all students from Class 1 to 8, just 28.8 per cent of those in private schools in West Bengal could read a full story "� the figure was a much higher 47 per cent in government schools in the state. In the case of mathematics, under 30 per cent of all privately schooled students in the state could divide versus over 47 per cent in government schools. Kerala, the other communist-ruled state, does not have such a stark difference between the two, but even there, government schools are not overwhelmingly inferior to private ones. Private schools in Madhya Pradesh also impart lower learning skills than government ones do. Clearly this is something educationists need to explain. (Click here to see table)
