Context
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 was recently released, which was facilitated by the NGO, Pratham.
Key-findings
- Pandemic effect: The percentage of rural children who were not enrolled in school doubled during the pandemic.
- Increase in enrolment: Government schools saw an increase in enrolment at the expense of private schools.
- Government school enrolment spiked significantly from3% in 2018 to 70.3% in 2021, while private school enrolment dropped from 32.5% to 24.4% over the same period.
- Reasons for enrollment shift: Financial distress, the closure of affordable private schools and the movement of migrants to rural areas.
- Never attended school: Over a third of children enrolled in Classes 1 and 2 have never attended school in person.
- Lack of learning resources: While 92% of children had textbooks for their grade, only one third of them had access to any other learning resources or support.
- Limited smartphone availability: With smartphone availability and access limited, online learning was restricted to a quarter of students.
- Varied experiences: 91% of students from Kerala and almost 80% from Himachal Pradesh had online education, but only 10% from Bihar and 13% from West Bengal.
- Private tuition: 40% of the school children are now opting for private tuition classes compared to 30% in 2018. This proportion has increased across both sexes and all grades and school types. The incidence of tuition has increased across all States except Kerala.
What is the Annual Status of Education Report?
- It is the largest citizen-led survey in India facilitated by Pratham NGO. It is also the only annual source of information on children’s learning outcomes available in India today.
- 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.
- ASER 2020 was conducted in 26 states and four Union Territories.
- ASER 2020 explored whether this unprecedented situation has caused shifts in children’s enrollment patterns in rural India.
