Annual Status of Education Report

Ruby Thakur
January 18, 2024
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The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), titled ‘Beyond Basics’, was released. It involved a survey by civil society organisation Pratham among rural students aged 14 to 18 years. The household survey, conducted in 28 districts across 26 states, assessed the foundational reading and arithmetic abilities of 34,745 students.

Annual Status of Education Report

Why In News

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), titled ‘Beyond Basics’, was released. It involved a survey by civil society organisation Pratham among rural students aged 14 to 18 years. The household survey, conducted in 28 districts across 26 states, assessed the foundational reading and arithmetic abilities of 34,745 students.

Annual Status Of Education Report

Annual Status of Education Report is a nationwide citizen-led household survey that provides a glimpse of the status of children’s schooling and learning outcomes in rural India.
The ASER 2023 “Beyond Basics” survey was conducted in 28 districts across 26 states, reaching a total of 34,745 youth in the age group 14-18 years.
One rural district was surveyed in each major state, with the exception of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where two rural districts were covered.
It discussed the activities students are engaged in, their basic and applied reading and math abilities and digital awareness and skills.

“The surveyed youth were given five types of tasks — basic reading, maths and English abilities; application of basic skills to everyday calculations; reading and understanding written instructions; and financial calculations that need to be done in real life. Youths’ performance on digital tasks was summarised taking into account digital awareness and aptitude,” it said.

What Does Report Says

The report painted a grim picture outlining that overall 86.8 per cent among the 14-18 year age category are enrolled in either school or college and the enrollment percentage goes down with the age.
The proportion of youth who are now not enrolled in school or college rises with age from 3.9 per cent of 14-year-olds to 10.9 per cent of 16-year-youth and 32.6 per cent of 18-year-old students.

Flagging that the Covid-19 pandemic had propelled a threat to livelihoods with older children dropping out of school, the report underscored that the fear “turned out to be unfounded”.
“The proportion of out-of-school children and youth has been declining, led by the government’s push to universalise secondary education,” it stated.
The report, however, pointed out that while young people remain in school longer, there’s no significant change in their foundational literacy and numeracy skills (FLN).

In 2017, 76.6 per cent of 14-18-year-old coulds read a Class 2-level text, while in 2023, this number is slightly lower at 73.6 per cent.
In arithmetic, in 2017, 39.5 per cent of youth could do a simple (Class 3-4 level) division problem, while in 2023, this proportion is slightly higher at 43.3 per cent.
“More than half struggle with division (3-digit by 1-digit) problems. Only 43.3 per cent of 14-18-year-olds are able to do such problems correctly. This skill is usually expected in Class 3-4,” the report found.

“Only 5.6% of surveyed youth report taking vocational training or other related courses currently. Youth at the college level are the most likely to be taking vocational training (16.2%),” the survey found adding that most youth are taking short duration courses of six months or less.
On abilities such as basic reading, math and English abilities; application of basic skills to everyday calculations; reading and understanding written instructions; and financial calculations that need to be done in real life, about 25% still cannot read a Class II level text fluently in their regional language.
While females (76%) do better than males (70.9%) in reading a Standard II level text in their regional language, males do better than females in arithmetic and English reading. “Of the youth who can do subtraction or more, over 60% are able to do the budget management task, about 37% can apply a discount, but only about 10% can calculate repayment,” the report added.

Close to 90% of all youth have a smartphone in the household and know how to use it. “Of those who can use a smartphone, males (43.7%) are more than twice as likely to have their own smartphone than females (19.8%). Females are less likely to know how to use a smartphone or computer as compared to males,” it added.
Across all tasks using mobile phones, males outperformed females. “Performance on digital tasks improves with education level. The ability to do digital tasks increases with basic reading proficiency,” it added.

The majority of respondents in Class 11 or higher were studying humanities-related subjects. The responses also reflect what is available in their villages. It is possible that someone wants to do science, but their local high school does not have science.
But again, there may be other ways to connect to subjects that the local high school does not offer.

The system is also very streamlined, but the New Education Policy of 2020 allows for more flexibility. There should be a way for a student to register for other kinds of learning opportunities.
Over some time, it should loosen up; physical restrictions should also loosen — you may not have a physical science teacher, but there are science teachers in the world from whom you should be able to learn.

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Ruby Thakur

General Studies Lecturer SSBCrackExams, BSc In PCM, Trained Students For State Services Exams. Expertise in Geography ,Polity & Current Affairs. Love Travelling.