News: NGO Pratham released the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2018)
Facts:
Key ASER 2018 (Rural) findings
Enrolment:
- Since 2007, the enrolment of children for the age group 6 to 14 has been above 95%.
- 1% of children in the 15-16 age group are not in school.
Learning Levels:
- Five-year-old children in private schools fared better in learning tasks than those in govt. schools and Anganwadi
- Only 16% of children in Class 1 can read the text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognize letters.
- Only 41% of these children could recognize two-digit numbers
State-wise Disparity: In Uttar Pradesh, over 60% of Class 3 children cannot recognize letters or read words whereas in Himachal Pradesh over 70% of children are either at grade-level or only close behind.
Choice of School: Parents are more likely to opt for a private school when selecting a school for boys while government schools are the primary choice of parents when it comes to girls’ education.
Key Recommendations:
- Strengthening and expansion of the existing network of Anganwadi Centres
- Age of students play an important role in the development of language, numeracy, social and emotional learning
- Enrolling students in primary grades at right age important for the overall development
- Age group between 4 to 8 years seen as continuous progressive stages, so curriculum development should be done in accordance with it.
Additional Information:
Annual Status of Education Report: It is an annual survey that aims to provide reliable annual estimates of children’s schooling status and basic learning levels for each state and rural district in India. It was first conducted in 2005.
