A Dismal Story of Academic Performance of Primary Students in West Bengal, India Debarshi Mandal 1 and Debasish Sarkar 1 Abstract This study is an attempt to look at the academic achievement in three core subjects, such as First Language, English and Arithmetic, of the primary school students studying in classes II and III in External Evaluation and Diagnostic Achievement Test in West Bengal, India. We try to provide an insight into the group disparity in academic achievement of the students in the three subjects through classifying the sample by caste, gender and sector. Besides, we also employ the logistic model of regression to assess likelihood of success of different groups in the minimum level of learning of these three subjects in the said examinations. The study found considerable disparity in academic skills among social groups, males and females and rural and urban students. Performance of the students was quite poor in Arithmetic compared to First Language and English. Findings of this study will enable the policy makers to design appropriate policies, which will enable the society to achieve better performance in education in future. JEL Codes: I21 Keywords Academic performance, primary students, external evaluation, diagnostic achievement test, minimum level of learning I. Introduction Education is one of the most important processes of developing human resources. The amplified human resources through education have enormous influence on an individual’s social behaviour. Better education develops the decision-making aptitude of a person, which enables a person to be a responsible citizen, facilitates him to get better jobs and to achieve better standard of living in the future (Klees et al., 2012). In addition, education improves health, equalises the socio-economic status of the groups defined by different ways of classification of the population that leads to social cohesion and peace, and it also reduces inequality and alleviates poverty (Garriga & Melé, 2013; Oldekop et al., 2016). Article 1 Chandernagar Government College, Chandannagar, Hooghly, West Bengal, India. Corresponding author: Debarshi Mandal, 32/E/1, Banamalipur Road, Ward No. 14, Bnamalipur,Barasat, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal 700124, India. E-mail: debarshi66@gmail.com The Indian Economic Journal 68(1) 40–60, 2020 © 2020 Indian Economic Association Reprints and permissions: in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india DOI: 10.1177/0019466220959577 journals.sagepub.com/home/iej