Patna, Jan. 20: Only 42 per cent of Class V students in government schools can read textbooks of the Class II level, and the rest not even that, according to a status of education report on Bihar for 2016.

Non-government organisation (NGO) Pratham says in the report that the quality of primary education has fallen in 2016 since 2014 when the last such study was conducted.

The report has indicated that only 42 per cent of students in Class V can at least read textbooks of Class II level. This is a disturbing figure for the education department because first, the national average is of 47.8 per cent and second, the report's corresponding figure from 2014 was around 45 per cent.

Pratham officials and senior teachers of Bihar blame the level and quality of teaching in schools for the drop.

The survey, which is conducted across the country, covered all of Bihar's districts and collected samples from 53,510 children in 22,796 households from around 1,140 villages. It also found that the students' performance in mathematics has fallen.

By Class VIII, about 40 per cent children are still unable to understand division and only 32.6 per cent of Class V students can do division. Also, just 26.6 per cent of the Class V students can solve subtraction problems.

The report suggests the government should immediately give more focus to teaching of mathematics at the upper primary level. "The performance of Bihar's students in mathematics has fallen in the past decade," said one of the NGO's officials on condition of anonymity. "Mathematics used to be a forte of Bihar's students... the percentage was much above the national average; but now we are moving southward."

Sources said the main reason for the deterioration in quality education is that the teachers are not imparting lessons to the students according to what is required.

"A student in Class III is being taught division and multiplication without the teacher finding out if the student even knows addition or subtraction," the Pratham official said, adding that in spite of the Bihar government's focus on education such as creating infrastructure, government schools in the rural areas suffer from shortage of teachers. Even if the schools have teachers, the official said, they are not competent to teach primary-level students.

Retired Patna University teacher and economist N.K. Choudhary slammed the quality of education imparted to students in government schools.

"The poor quality of primary education is mainly because of unqualified teachers working at the government schools," said Choudhary, who was also the principal of Patna College, the oldest college in Bihar. "These teachers are not only providing the students substandard education but many a times, they are teaching incorrect things.

"Education is not a priority of the government," he added. "Teachers are engaged in all types of non-academic work such as supervising midday meals and construction work in schools, engaging in election duties, census collection and more recently, the human chain programme."

Most of the senior education department officials could not be reached for comment on the Pratham report today, as they were busy preparing for the human chain in favour of prohibition.

The Telegraph got through to M. Ramachandrudu, director, primary education, who said: "I have not gone through the report as I am not in office. I can only comment after going through the report."

The report's findings also indicate that regardless of age and grade, it is important for the government to immediately focus on building foundational skills.