A Study of Relationship between Schooling Provisions and Academic Performance of Secondary Schools in India
Abstract
Educational facilities play a crucial role in strengthening and improving the quality of education. Unfortunately, in India, educational institutions lack educational facilities which results in malfunctioning of these institutions. Poor and inadequate educational facilities affect the overall performance of these institutions. Sufficient facilities promote academic achievement and ensure a strengthening of overall institutional performance. This paper attempts to investigate the relationship between schooling provisions including infrastructure facilities, teachers and teaching-learning material and academic achievement of students at secondary level in India. Subsequently, an attempt has been made to identify the aspects of school facility design that have the greatest potential to impact learning. The paper aims (i) to analyse the status of schooling provisions and student performance at secondary level; (ii) to critically examine the relationship between schooling provisions and academic performance of secondary level, and its implications for policy planning in school education. The paper is based on an analysis of the data and information collected from 2,58,913 recognised secondary schools/sections from all the 35 states and union territories under U-DISE in 2017-18, the latest year for which complete data on all components (access, participation, retention and outcomes) were available. Then it was organised, tabulated and analysed. Percentage was used as a statistical tool for the statistical treatment of the data. After analysis of the data, the researcher arrived at the conclusion that adequate educational facilities (like school building, boundary wall, playground, library, laboratory, computer and related facilities like electricity facility, generator set, internet, computer laboratory, sanitary facilities (particularly separate urinal and lavatory facilities for boys and girls including female teachers), female teachers with qualifications, trained teachers) were not available in the schools at the secondary level which is the main obstruction and hindrance in acquiring quality education. The paper further revealed that student’s academic performance evinces a direct, positive correlation with the accessibility and quality of these facilities, as manifest in the substantial and statistically significant coefficient values. Hence, the reform programmes like Samagra Shiksha and other centrally sponsored schemes should focus their attention on providing the basic infrastructure facilities and staff in the existing secondary schools/sections so as to make them confirm to norms and standards. This effort would certainly go a long way in improving and strengthening secondary education as well as improving the overall performance of the students and institutions at secondary school level in India.
Author: Nilakantha Mohanty
Published in: World Congress on Education (2024)
- Date of Conference: 26-28 August, 2024
- DOI: 10.20533/WCE.2024.0019
- Electronic ISBN: 978-1-913572-71-6
- Conference Location: Churchill College, Cambridge, UK