coimbatore year after year as nongovernmental organisation pratham publishes its aser report on education coimbatore has demonstrated improvement coimbatore stood third among the 30 districts when it came to enrolment in private schools with 368 kanyakumari and nilgiris were on top with 728 and 653 respectively almost 70 of students in coimbatore can read letters in english or tamil and nearly 60 can pass the reading test of class 1 level for arithmetic 778 of children in classes 1 and 2 could identify numbers between 1 and 9 and 536 of students in classes 3 to 5 could do subtraction however when these numbers are compared with other districts in tamil nadu such as pudukottai madurai theni nagapattinam sivaganga virudhunagar and ramanathapuram coimbatore doesnt fare as well in those districts 80 or more students passed reading competency tests experts said lack of certain teaching methodologies practiced in the southern districts has kept coimbatore from figuring in the top in the analysis most schools in the southern districts do not provide choices in the question papers students have to attend all questions said j p gandhi an educational consultant this makes the child study every possible question there is no chance of skipping any portion he said many private schools in the southern districts invited teachers from outside tamil nadu and leaders in academia they share their experiences and students are exposed to activities beyond the syllabus gandhi said the participation of students in science exhibitions and other statelevel activities is more southern tamil nadu he added chief education officer of the district a gnana gowri said coimbatore had figured third in academic performance in 2014 but the lack of good teachers in some schools has been a cause for concern last week she reviewed the schools halfyearly exam performance during the review i realized that there is lack of good quality teachers at the primary level especially in new private schools some had less than 50 pass percentage she said many teachers stick to explaining the concepts and not solving exercises after the lessons are completed especially in mathematics and science it is important to discuss the exercise questions in the class after each unit is done said geetha lakshmanan principal national model school homework is based on classwork but teachers at the primary level fail to engage students in classwork she said