Nearly 12,000 Class 1 students lack minimum reading, writing skills in Maharashtra due to COVID

Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad informed the Legislative Council on Tuesday that many as 12,000 students or 37 per cent of the total students in Class 1 in Maharashtra could not attain reading and writing skills due to the COVID-19 situation.

Maharashtra School Reopening: After being closed for nearly two years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, schools for primary students have finally reopened across Maharashtra. The closure of schools has adversely affected the intellectual growth of students. Maharashtra school education minister Varsha Gaikwad informed the Legislative Council on Tuesday that many as 12,000 students or 37 per cent of the total students in Class 1 in Maharashtra could not attain reading and writing skills due to the COVID-19 situation.

12,300 out of 1,47,277 students lack minimum reading, writing skills 

Lockdowns imposed to curb COVID-19 spread affected the academic calendar across the globe and the adverse effects of the same are now visible among students.  Responding to a starred question raised by MLC Dr Sudhir Tambe, the minister said the finding was from a survey that was conducted covering 1,47,277 students from Classes 1 to 5.

Talking about the survey that revealed a lack of reading and writing skills among students, the minister informed, "The number of students from Class 1 stood at 32,888. It was found in the survey that 12,300 students, or 37 per cent, had failed to attain minimum skills to read and write. It is the highest percentage of students failing to attain minimum skills among all classes.”

“The cumulative percentage of the students who failed to attain reading and writing skills stands at 14.76 per cent. This issue will be addressed with online and offline training sessions conducted by the teachers. Once the training is over, there will be a fresh survey to find out how beneficial it was," the minister told the Council.

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