ASER Report 2022: Post Pandemic State Of Education

About ASER Report 2022: The annual status of education report(ASER) Report 2022 is an annual report by Pratham Foundation, highlighting the state of  education in India.
What Is In ASER Report 2022? After two years of a Covid-19 pandemic induced school shutdown, the recently released 17th ASER Report 2022 contains both good (high enrolment) and bad news (drop in learning levels).

Annual Status of Education Report | ASER 2021 |

Context of ASER Report 2022

In News: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 was recently published by PRATHAM, a non-governmental organization(NGO).

Background: Amid the pandemic, ASER Report 2021 was conducted on the basis of telephonic surveys, with a special focus on digital inequality and enrolment levels in schools. The last ASER report based on the physical household surveys was released in 2018.

What Is ASER Report?

• The Annual Status of Education Report, or ASER, is an annual, citizen-led household survey that aims to understand whether children in rural India are enrolled in school and whether they are learning.
• ASER is conducted by Pratham, a non-government organization.
• Unlike most other large-scale learning assessments, ASER is a household-based rather than school-based survey.
• This design enables all children to be included – those who have never been to school or have dropped out, as well as those who are in government schools, private schools, religious schools or anywhere else.
• From 2005 to 2014, and then every alternate year till 2018, large-scale, nation-wide ASER surveys provided representative estimates of the enrolment status of children aged 3-16 and the basic reading and arithmetic levels of children aged 5-16 at the national, state and district level.

About ASER Report 2022

• For Preparing ASER Report 2022 NGO Pratham surveyed children aged 6 to 14 since 2005 to track trends in school enrolment, attendance and reading and arithmetic abilities.
• This year’s report (came after 2018) surveyed 7 lakh children across 19,060 villages in 616 districts in the country.
• After two years of a Covid-19-induced school shutdown, the recently released 17th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2022 contains both good (high enrolment) and bad news (drop in learning levels).

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Key Findings Of The ASER Report 2022

• School enrolment touched a record high: The ASER Report 2022, led by Pratham Foundation, highlighted that despite the prolonged closure of schools, the overall enrollment in schools across the country has increased at all levels, with 98.4% in the age group of 6-14 years currently enrolled in schools. The figure stood at 97.2% in 2018.
• The Proportion Of Out Of School Girls Reduced: For girls aged 11-14, this share dropped from 4.1% in 2018 to 2% in 2022 (which stood at 10.3% in 2006).
• Drop in learning levels:
  • Between 2014 and 2018, learning levels in terms of foundational skills in reading and arithmetic had been rising gradually.
  • However, in 2022, the basic reading ability of children in Class 3 dipped by 6.8% points from 2018 and the proportion of children in Class 3 who could do at least subtraction fell to 25.9% in 2022.
  • The basic reading ability of children in age group 5–16-year-olds enrolled in both government and private schools across the country have sharply dropped.
• A small, steady increase in the children availing private tuitions: Between 2018 and 2022, this proportion increased further – from 26.4% to 30.5% – a trend for over a decade now.
• Increase in enrollment in government schools: The percentage of children (aged 11 – 14) who are enrolled in government schools has risen from 65% in 2018 to 71.7% in 2022 – a trend that was reflected in the government’s UDISE+ data.

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