ASER Report 2022 Updates: Rise in number of students taking private tuitions post Covid

The ASER report said the survey was conducted across nine districts, 262 villages, and 4,859 households in Manipur. The survey highlighted that Manipur has the lowest government school enrolment percentage among north-eastern states. Read the full report by Jimmy Leivon at Indianexpress.com

While Punjab perfomed better than the national average in a number of indicators, it saw a decline in its own performance instead. Just 33 per cent of class 3 children tested in Punjab can read basic class 2 level text, which is six per cent lesser than in 2018 but higher than the national average of 20.5 per cent. Read full report by Divya Goyal on indianexpress.com

As per the ASER 2022, Maharashtra saw a steady decline from 2018 to 2022 in students' reading and arithmetic skills. While schools having usable computers has seen a drop; there is a whooping jump in the number of households having mobile phones which are smartphones with internet facilities.Read full report by Pallavi Smart on Indianexpress.com

As per ASER 2021, 1 in 3 students belonging to classes 1 and 2 did not attend school in person due to reasons such as lack of digital access. But, in according to 2022 report, the availability of smartphones in homes of enrolled students has nearly doubled from 2018 to 2021, from 36.5 per cent to 67.6 per cent, Read report by Sourav Roy Barman on Indianexpress.com. However, state-wise numbers show that the rise has been highly uneven. Also the attendance, of students in rural areas was nearly 72 per cent as per ASER 2022. 

2022 was the first time when the percentage of children currently not enrolled in schools dropped to 2 per cent or below. Even after prolonged school closures during the pandemic period, proportion of children not enrolled in school continued to decline between 2018 and 2022.

The proportion of children enrolled in government schools has increased since 2018 at the national level. From 2010 to 2014, the enrollment in government schools saw a decline, it was followed by a 'plateau' period from 2014 to 2018. And, from 2018 to 2022 there has been an increase of 7.3 percentage points in government school enrollment.

As per the ASER 2022, there has been a record high in the number of enrollment, reaching the highest level since the introduction of the Right to Education Act in 2009. During the pandemic there was a spike in dropout rates, which was temporary. Read full report on Indianexpress.com by Sourav Roy Barman

ASER 2022 mentioned 'A National Math Problem' report by Indianexpress.com which talks about how after the pandemic, students in class 5 found it difficult to solve basic math problems.

Happy to see my series tracking teaching-learning in a class V classroom after two years of COVID disruption being mentioned in the ASER Report 2022 released today ? pic.twitter.com/bLMcFd3yq9

— Sukrita Baruah (@BaruahSukrita) January 18, 2023

As per ASER 2022, most children received their textbooks for the current academic year by September 2022. Textbooks had been distributed to all grades in 90.1% of primary schools and in 84.4% of upper primary schools.

Percentage of students attending tuitions outside schools have increased. The state with highest percentage of students going for tuitions is Bihar (71.7%), followed by Manipur (53.4%) and Jharkhand (45.3%). The exceptions are Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Tripura.

From 6.7 per cent in 2018 to 2.2 per cent in 2022, there has been a significant dip in reading abilities of class 2 students students. “This fall is a huge drop, given how slowly the all-India numbers move, and confirms fears of large learning losses caused by the pandemic,” according to Director ASER Centre Wilima Wadhwa. Read the full story by Sourav Roy Barman on indianexpress.com

All Right to Education indicators show improvement

In 2022, percentage of girls (15 to 16 year old) not enrolled in schools continued to decline. In 2022, the percentage was 7.9 per cent. The state with the highest percentage of girls in the age bracket of 15 to 16 year old not going to school was Madhya Pradesh (17.0), followed by Uttar Pradesh (15.0) and Chhattisgarh (11.1)

In the reading and arithmetic levels of boys and girls in Grade V and Grade VIII, girls perform better in reading skills while boys in arithmetic

Most sports-related indicators also remain at close to the levels observed in 2018. For example, in 2022, 68.9% schools have a playground, up slightly from 66.5% in 2018. 

In 2022, for the first time, the percentage of children currently not enrolled in school has dropped to 2% or below. Despite prolonged school closures, the proportion of children not enrolled in school continued to decline between 2018 and 2022.

Punjab has shown a steady improvement in the facilities provided in primary and upper primary government schools in the state. For example, the proportion of schools with drinking water available increased from 82.7% in 2018 to 92.7% in Punjab.Similarly, there has been a significant change 3.8% to 22.2% in the percentage of schools that have computers that are being used by children

Attendance patterns, both for children and teachers have remained steady over time, ASER 2022 survey reveals. All-India (rural) figures for children’s attendance remains close to 72% while that for teachers is a little above 85%. However, there continues to be wide variation across states with UP, MP, Bihar, Tripura among states with lowest attendance rate while Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have over 86% enrolled students attending schools

As per ASER 2022, there is considerable variation in rural India, in the proportion of children who are enrolled in government schools. However, in almost all states, there has been a rise in government school enrollment between 2018 and 2022. Currently 72.4% children (6-14) are enrolled in government schools in rural India

At All India level, there is little to no difference in the learning levels of children by their gender. However, variations exist across states and regions. For example, in all southern states and in Maharashtra, girls outperform boys in both reading and arithmetic tasks in class 5 and 8

Only 38.5% of class 5 children in government schools can at least read at Grade II level in rural areas. In states, where 2018 reading levels were low, learning loss has been relatively low and in many cases “recovery” has taken place to come back closer to 2018 levels. In fact, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have made gains that take them higher than 2018 levels. States with higher  eading levels like Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab have seen relatively higher learning losses between 2018 & 2022. 

The pandemic has worsened the situation in many states. The extent of the decline in math levels between 2018 and 2022 also varies
considerably across states. Only 20 per cent of grade 3 students in Tamil Nadu were able to do basic substractions while over 50 per cent of children in Manipur could solve these math sums, which is also the highest among all states.

Between 2018 and 2022, in all states, there is an increase in the proportion of children who attend tuition classes. The exceptions are Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Tripura

All India figures suggest that from 2014 to 2018, there had been a gradual improvement in both basic reading and math. However this was interrupted by the pandemic years. 

As per ASER 2022 report, nationally, proportion of children enrolled in government schools has increased since 2018. There is an increase of 7.3 percentage points in government school enrollment in the period 2018 to 2022

The enrollment levels of children in the age bracket of 6 to 14 years have gone from 96.6% in 2010 to 96.7% in 2014 and 97.2% in 2018 to 98.4% in 2022.

In the ASER 2022 reports, around 7 lakh candidates from 19,060 schools in 616 districts were surveyed to calculate the learning outcomes post pandemic on school children

"India had the longest duration of school closures. It sparked fears of dropouts. There was no nationally representative data to evaluate the impact that the pandemic was having on learning outcomes. ASER 2022 will be useful to understand the impact of the pandemic. ASER 2022 is a function of both learning loss and recovery," Director, ASER centre Wilima Wadhwa said.

The ASER report last year revealed that the availability of smartphones in homes of enrolled students has nearly doubled from 2018 to 2021, from 36.5 per cent to 67.6 per cent. But state-wise numbers show that the rise has been highly uneven, with some states that were laggards catching up with better positioned ones, while a few require further push despite showing some improvement. It is expected that this number might shift to a downward side given the resuming of offline classes. 

You can watch the live streaming of the ASER 2022 Report launch at the Youtube channel of Pratham foundation

#HappeningTomorrow
Are you ready for ASER 2022 findings?
The report is releasing tomorrow at 10:30 am IST. You can access the live stream by clicking here: https://t.co/R2XQYFyV6N@asercentre @prathamusa @PrathamUK #ASER #ASER2022 #backtoschool #learning #education #pratham

— Pratham Education Foundation (@Pratham_India) January 17, 2023

ASER report 2021 highlighted that children in rural areas have moved out of private to government schools cutting across age groups. And the possible reasons are likely to be shut down of low-cost private schools, financial distress of parents, families migrating back to villages.

The ASER report, which was based on a phone survey in September-October 2021 of 75,234 children aged 5-16 across 581 rural districts, had underlined a “clear shift” from private to government schools: from 64.3 per cent in 2018 to 65.8 per cent in 2020 to 70.3 per cent in 2021, and a dip in private school enrollment from from 28.8 percent in 2020 to 24.4 per cent in 2021. Read more

Almost 40 per cent of children in India are taking paid private tuition classes, as per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021. “The largest increases in the proportion of children taking tuition are seen among children from the most disadvantaged households,” the report stated. Haryana, as an exception, had emerged as the only state where the tuition dependency had decreased

The survey, led by the Pratham Foundation, was last conducted at this scale in 2018. After the outbreak of Covid-19, ASER became phone-based and turned its focus on exploring digital inequality and enrollment levels in schools. However, in 2022, the Pratham resumed its field survey. Surveyors fanned out across states and held face to face interactions with children and teachers in rural India to capture the state of learning.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), which sheds light on learning outcomes in schools, will be released today. The survey, led by the Pratham Foundation, was last conducted at this scale in 2018.