50% of Odisha’s class 8 students can't do basic division, 30% struggle with subtraction: Data

Bhubaneswar: Half of class 8 students in the state don't know basic arithmetic division and around 30 per cent struggle with subtraction, Odisha Assembly was informed on Friday.

In a written reply to a query, state school and mass education minister Nityananda Gond said, "According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)-2024, 69.5 per cent of class 8 students were able to perform subtraction, and 48.5 per cent of students can do division, against the national average of 68.5 per cent and 45.8 per cent, respectively." Quoting the ASER report, Gond said, "The number of class 8 students who were able to do subtraction has increased by 6 per cent during the last decade (2014 to 2024)."

Similarly, the percentage of such students who were able to do division also increased by 11 per cent during the period, he added while replying to a query by Baliguda MLA Chakramani.

"Odisha students’ performance was better than the national average in 2024," he claimed.

The minister further said the state government has been distributing Odia, English, and mathematics workbooks to class 8 students for practice.

Besides, the government has planned to provide necessary study materials to the students for their education.

Accordingly, proposals have been made to include it under the Annual Action Plan of Samagra Shiksha Yojana and the budget 2025-26, he added.