Quality of Elementary Education and Ground Realities in Uttar Dinajpur District

Abstract
Education is the most powerful instrument to change the society. The welfare and economic progress of a country depends on the quality of education because education refers to the development of human skill and knowledge of the people or labor force and education is called human capital. Different education policies during the post independent period focused primarily to improve the enrolment in the primary school in India. In order to access all children up to 14 years of age the different National Education Policies gave priority to universialization of elementary education program on different times and many initiatives like Operation Black Board, Mid-day Meal, Sarvashiksha Abhijan (SSA) and Right to Education Act. Uttar Dinajpur district is not an exception. Literacy and education of the district shows dismal picture and according to census report 2011the district has the lowest rank in the state. The district is an economically and educationally back ward district.
The present paper is an attempt to study the enrolment trend at the elementary level in the government school and private schools in Uttar Dinajpur during the period 2012-13 to 2016-17 and enquiry into the problems relating to the learning outcomes of the children at the elementary level in government schools of the district. The empirical findings point out many problems such as poor academic performances of the students, wastage of teaching time on mid-day meal related works, irregular attendance of the teachers in the school, teacher-guardian meet, guardians choice regarding admission of their children , lack of parents awareness and use of mobile phone in the class room.

Keywords: Learning, Literacy, Mid-Day Meal, Principal Component Analysis, Public schools, t-test, z-test

https://doi.org/10.37948/ensemble-2020-0202-a021