ASER
REPORT - REPORT AND INDICES
News:
Annual Status of
Education Report 2022 flags widening learning gaps
What's
in the news?
●
As schools reopened after nearly two years
of closure due to COVID-19, student
enrolments increased to more than pre-pandemic levels but the learning gap
widened for foundational skills in reading and arithmetic, reversing
several years of improvement, finds the Annual Status of Education Report
(ASER) 2022, released by the NGO Pratham.
ASER
Report:
●
ASER is a household survey conducted across 616 rural districts and covers
6.9 lakh children in the age group of 3
to 16 years to record their schooling status and assess their basic reading
and arithmetic skills.
●
The report is being brought out after four
years and records the impact of school closures in 2020 and 2021, as well as
the return to school of children in 2022.
●
It is conducted by NGO Pratham.
Key
takeaways:
Positives:
●
The national-level study shows that
despite school closures during the pandemic, the overall enrolment figures for the 6 to 14 years age group,
increased from 97.2% in 2018 to 98.4% in 2022.
●
The proportion of children in this (3-16
years) age group who are not currently
enrolled also dropped to its lowest level ever to 1.6% from 2.8% in 2018.
●
Government
schools have seen a sharp increase in children enrolled from
65.6% in 2018 to 72.9% in 2022.
●
It finds that the percentage of girls in the age group of 11-14 years who were out of
school declined to 2% from 4.1%. The decrease in the proportion of girls not
enrolled in school is even sharper among older girls in the 15-16 years age
group, which stood at 7.9% in 2022 as compared with 13.5% in 2018.
Issues:
●
Despite the enthusiasm seen among parents
and students towards schools, children’s basic literacy levels have taken a big
hit, with their reading ability as
compared to numeracy skills worsening much more sharply and dropping to
pre-2012 levels.
●
The percentage of children in Class 3 in
government or private schools who were able to read at the level of Class 2
dropped from 27.3% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2022.
●
Nationally, the proportion of children
enrolled in Class 5 in government or private schools who can at least read a
Class 2-level text fell from 50.5% in 2018 to 42.8% in 2022.
●
The drops in basic reading ability are
smaller for Class 8 students, where 69.6% of children enrolled in government or
private schools who could read at least basic text in 2022 falling from 73% in
2018.
●
Class 3 students who were able to do at
least subtract dropped from 28.2% in 2018 to 25.9% in 2022.
●
The proportion of children in Class 5
across India who can carry out division has also fallen slightly from 27.9% in
2018 to 25.6% in 2022.
●
Students
going to tuition rose further from 26.4% in 2018 to 30.5% in
2022 in both private and government schools. (Families withdraw students from
private schools to save money spent on tuition fees).