Bihar school children doing better in English, math

Patna (PTI): School students in Bihar have been found doing better in English and Mathematics than their counterparts in other parts of the country, the annual status report on education has said.

"Students here have been found to learn English better than other students in the country. The percentage of students of classes I to VIII who could read easy sentences in English was 26.5 per cent in comparison to the national average of 23.6 per cent," Education Project Director and Public Relations Department Secretary Rajesh Bhusan told PTI.

Students in the state have been found to be good in Mathematics too. The percentage of students in the six-eight age group who could solve subtraction orally was 31.4 per cent which was much higher than the national average of 18.1 per cent, Bhusan said, quoting figures from Annual Status Report on Education.

The report was released by Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia in New Delhi recently.

The out-of-school rate in Bihar has almost halved, with significant rise in the number of girl students. In the age group of 11-14, the percentage of out-of-school girls has come down from 17.6 per cent to 9.7 per cent.

Bhusan said the enrollment in schools in 2006 was 72.2