Government-schools
Analysing the overall performance of the state government-run schools and private schools in NAS 2021 showed that while the performances of both sets of schools are almost similar at class III stage, the gap increases in higher classes in favour of the private schools. For example, while the school-wise performance in language in class III for government schools is at 323, for private school it is comparable at 324. However, the same in class V is 302 and 319 respectively and widens significantly by class VIII to 285 and 331.
State-wise government schools in Punjab, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh have performed better, scoring significantly higher than the national score. The states which performed poorly here are Delhi, Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh.
A comparison between NAS 2021 and 2018 (NAS for class X) showed that the academic performance, especially in science and mathematics, have gone south. In mathematics at class X level, the national average of state government-run schools in 2017 was 252, which slipped to 210 in 2021. Similarly, private schools slipped from 263 to 228. Similarly, in science, state-government schools slipped from 251 to 195 out of a total assessment score of 500, while the private schools’ performance dipped from 259 to 229.
State-wise
In overall achievement, barring Punjab and Rajasthan, UT Chandigarh and in a couple of instances Kerala and Madhya Pradesh, learning achievements dipped significantly in others below the 2017 mark. States like Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are mentioned multiple times in the bottom three in terms of overall performance compared to the national average.
Punjab tops in 11 of the 15 subject-wise performances across classes, while it is in top two in two other lists. In the bottom three performances, Telangana appears seven times, Tamil Nadu appears four times and Uttar Pradesh thrice (mostly in higher classes).
Gender-wise
Though there was no significant difference in the national average of the performance of boys and girls since the last survey, the number of states and UTs in which performance of girls was better than boys increased significantly this year in comparison with the 2017 survey. For example, in language, girls in class III performed better than boys in 33 states and UTs against 18 states in the 2017 survey. Similarly, in class V, girls in 33 states and UTs performed better than boys in language, while girls performed significantly better than boys in 16 states and UTs, in the last survey.
In mathematics, girls in class III performed better than boys in 16 states and UTs as against six states previously. Overall, girls seemed to have matched or outdone boys in all subjects except for the widening gap seen in mathematics as students reached progressively higher classes. In class X, boys outperformed girls in mathematics in 28 states signifying a gap in learning outcomes, which becomes most stark by class X when boys significantly outperform girls in the subjects.
Category-wise
In terms of social-group wise performance, the average performance of SC/ST/OBC students remained low in almost all classes across the states, in comparison to the general category students. For instance, in class X’s English, the national average score of general students stood at 308 while it was 283 for SC students, 280 for ST and 289 for OBC students.
