Why in News?
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2019 data on early childhood education in rural areas was released recently.
What is the ASER report?
- ASER report is prepared by an NGO called Pratham.
- The ASER surveyors visited almost 37,000 children between 4 and 8 years in 26 rural districts across 24 States.
- They asked each child to do a variety of tasks testing cognitive skills as well as simple literacy and numeracy tests.
- Social and emotional development was tracked through activities using cards with faces showing happiness, sadness, anger and fear.
What are the findings in the report?
- Only 16% of children in Class 1 in 26 surveyed rural districts can read text at the prescribed level while almost 40% can’t even recognise letters.
- Only 41% of these children could recognise two digit numbers.
- Two-thirds of those in the Class 2 cannot read a text at age 7 that they were meant to read a year earlier.
- The performance only marginally improves for those in the Class 3. There are similar inadequacies for numeracy skills.
- Students appear to fare somewhat better in private schools with poorly paid teachers.
What does the data reveal?
- This data makes the case that the pre-school system fails to give children a strong foundation.
- This case is true especially in the government-run facilities.
- Going by the findings,
- The percentage of girls in government schools is higher than in private institutions,
- The cognitive skills of children attending official anganwadi playschools do not match those attending private schools, and
- There are a significant percentage of underage children in the first standard of formal school, in violation of the stipulated age of six.
- It is beyond question that children will be benefitted greatly if they are provided a properly designed environment to acquire cognitive skills.
- These skills are critical to their ability to verbalise, count, calculate and make comparisons.
What are the issues at policy-level?
- The ASER data seem to indicate that there is an apparent imbalance in State policies.
- This is disadvantaging the less affluent as anganwadis and government schools are poorly resourced.
- Official policies are also not strict about the age of entry, resulting in 4 and 5 year olds accounting for a quarter of government school enrolment, and over 15% in private schools.
What are the other problems?
- Nationally, the problem is of a weak educational foundation with little scope for creative learning in the 3-to-6 year age group.
- Another national problem is governmental system disinterested in giving children motivated, well-trained teachers.
What could be done?
- For better outcomes, a deeper look at how governments approach funding of institutions and teacher training is needed.
- It is as important to let teachers feel invested in anganwadis as play-and-learn centres aiding children in acquiring cognitive skills, as it is to provide physical infrastructure.
- Building human resource capabilities would depend on teachers being recruited on the basis of aptitude, their training in credentialed colleges and assurance of tenure of service.
- There is no dearth of literature on what works for creative teaching and learning, including from programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
- Neither is there a lack of financial resources. The governments should show commitment to education.
Source: The Hindu
