Bengaluru: A new report from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 has raised concerns about the reading abilities of class 3 students in rural Karnataka. The report reveals that 7.1% of these students, from both government and private schools, cannot read a single letter.
The findings, cited by Deccan Herald, show that 19.3 percent of class 3 students can read letters but struggle with words or sentences, while 36.2 percent can read words but not text above a class 1-level.
Only 21.5 percent of students can read class 1-level text but not class 2-level, and 15.9 percent are able to read class 2-level text.
Encouragingly, the percentage of class 3 students, who can read class-2 level textbooks, has shown a slight increase across both government and private schools.
In addition to literacy concerns, the report highlighted challenges in numerical skills. It was found that only 19 percent of government school children in class 5 and 35 percent in class 8 could perform division, compared to 25 percent and 43 percent, respectively, in private schools.
The ASER 2024 also noted a decline in the enrolment of children aged 6-14 in government schools in Karnataka, from 76 percent in 2022 to 71 percent this year.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): International Master Divya Deshmukh gave nothing away and held higher-ranked Grandmaster and compatriot Koneru Humpy to an easy draw on Sunday to force the final into a tie-breaker where games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.
Divya, who did not make utmost use of her promising opening in the first game of the match, was far more composed against a Queen pawn opening and faced little trouble playing with black pieces.
Humpy, got the optical advantage with her pair of bishops out of the opening but Divya knew that if she placed her knights perfectly, white will not be able to create many problems. As it happened in the game after two minor pieces, the pair of rooks also changed hands and the queen-and-minor-piece endgame only offered little hope.
Humpy tried to make some headway with a pawn sacrifice in the endgame but in the process her bishop pair was gone, and though a pawn plus, Divya had to cover some weaknesses.
After the dust settled, Humpy recovered the pawn back and Divya repeated the position through checks to sign peace in 34 moves.
The tiebreaker will see two games of 15 minutes each with a 10 second increment after every move is played.
If the scores are still level, the players will play another set of 10 minutes per game with a 10 second increment. If the tie doesn't get resolved, it will be two more games of five minutes plus three second increment.
Should the deadlock continue, one game will be played with three minutes to both players with a two second increment unless one player ends up winner.
In the play-off for the third place between China's Zhongyi Tan and Lei Tingjie, the match looked headed towards a draw.
Results: Koneru Humpy (Ind) drew with Divya Deshmukh (Ind); Lei Tingjie (Chn) playing Tan Zhongyi (Chn).