Why in news?
The Annual Status of Education Report 2023 has been published recently by Pratham, a civil society organisation.
What is ASER?
- It is a nationwide citizen-led household survey that provides a snapshot of the status of children’s schooling and learning in rural India.
- Conducted by- Pratham, a non-governmental organisation.
- Launched- 2005
- Published- It was conducted annually until 2014 and switched to alternate year cycle in 2016.
- Basic ASER- It collects information about enrolment in pre-school and school for children in the age group of 3 to 16, and assesses children aged 5 to 16 one-on-one to understand their foundational reading and arithmetic abilities.
- ASER, 2017- For the first time it focused on the activities, abilities and aspirations of the youth aged 14 to 18 in 28 districts of the country.
- ASER 2023- It revisits 14-18 age group on collecting data and information about new domain that have emerged as important in the post pandemic world.
- Theme- Beyond Basics
- Data collection- The survey was conducted in 28 districts across 26 states in India.
What are the key highlights of the report?
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Category
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Enrolment %
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Overall enrolment
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86.8%
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Not enrolled for 14 year old
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14 year old- 3.9%
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18 year old- 32.6%
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- Opted streams- Most of the people in this age group were enrolled in the Arts/Humanities streams.
- Females are less likely to be enrolled in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) stream (28.1%) than males (36.3%).
- Vocational training- Only 5.6% of surveyed youth report taking vocational training or other related courses currently.
- Basic reading- About 25% still cannot read a Class II level text fluently in their regional language.
- Math abilities- More than half struggle with division (3 digit by 1 digit) problems.
- English ability- A little over half can read sentences in English (57.3%).
- Of those who can read sentences in English almost three quarters can tell their meaning.
- Gender based performance- Females can do better than males in reading a Class II level text in their regional language.
- Males do better than females in arithmetic and English reading.
- Across all digital tasks, such as finding and sharing videos, searching the internet, setting an alarm, and using Google maps, boys outperformed girls.
- Gender gap- Males are more than twice as likely to have their own smartphone as females.
- Mobile penetration- Close to 90% of all youth have a smartphone in the household and kn0w how to use it.
- About two-thirds of the youth reported using smartphones for educational purposes, such as watching online videos related to studies, solving doubts or exchanging notes.
- Digital literacy divide- Females are less likely to know how to use a smartphone or computer as compared to males.
- Skill deficit- The report revealed that there is a huge skill deficit among adolescents, many of them only a few years away from entering the job market.
References
- The Hindu- Half of youth failed basic math
- Down To Earth- Girls in rural area less likely to use smartphones
- Indian Express- Rural kids lack class 3 math
