Quality education at elementary level in rural India: standing at crossroads

The quality of education in foundation level plays an important role for development of human resources. This study examines state wise status of elementary education on schools situated in rural area of India based on the students achievement performances on own regional language, mathematics and everyday calculation test. In order to measure the achievement performances in education, the present article used principle component analysis on original 14 correlated variables to generate 4 factors. The cluster analysis applied on four factors to measure the status of education in different state at elementary level in India. Based on the cluster analysis results, the study found achievement performance of students enrolled at elementary level (Std- I to Std- VIII) in rural area are worst in the states like Andhra prades, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Kerala, Himachal prades, Utarakhanda, Mizoram, Pondicherry (cluster- 1). The status of elementary education are good in the states like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar prades, Arunachal prades, Gujarat, Assam (Cluster- 4) and better in the states like Goa, Haryana, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Manipur (cluster-2). However, the students in states like Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Tripura, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Daman Diu and Nagaland are best on achievement performance in education.