Districts such as Kolhapur, Sindhudurg, and Mumbai City recorded strong performances, whereas Mumbai Suburban trailed behind, in the recently released PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan survey. The survey, conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and the Department of School Education and Literacy, aims to assess the effectiveness of school education across all boards. Assessing students across Std III, VI, and IX, the survey centred its questionnaire around language skills, mathematics, science and social sciences.

“Districts like Sindhudurg have always had a high literacy rate, so it’s no surprise that they are leading the charts,” said Farida Lambay, an educationist and co-founder of Pratham. “We also see a dip in the performance of Std VI students all across; these may be the ones who had their early education years interrupted by the pandemic,” she added.

Mumbai City was placed in the ‘rising’ category for Std III students, while it ranked among the ‘excelling’ districts for Std VI and IX. In contrast, Mumbai Suburban was classified in the ‘early stages of growth’ across all three grade levels.