'62% class V students in rural areas can't read class II text'

JAMMU, Oct. 11 -- Nearly 62 per cent of Class V students in rural Jammu and Kashmir cannot read a Class II-level text, a new report has said, flagging poor foundational learning as one of the biggest challenges facing the Union Territory's education sector.

Titled "A New Vision for J&K and a New Strategy for Realising that Vision", the report draws on the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024. It says only 37.8 per cent of rural Class V students have reached the reading level expected of a child in Class II.

The government-private gap is stark. According to the ASER data cited, just 21.8 per cent of Class V students in government schools could read a Class II-level text, compared with 60.3 per cent in private schools, a difference...