The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 has been released recently.

About the ASER Survey

• It is an annual citizen-led survey that provides reliable estimates of children’s schooling and learning levels in rural India
• ASER is a household-based rather than school-based survey and uses the The ASER survey uses the 2011 census framework
• ‘Basic’ ASER Design: It randomly selects 30 villages from each district, and twenty households from each village generating a total of 600 households per district or about 300,000 households for the country as a whole.
• Age Assessment: Approximately 6.5 Lakh children in 3 age groups are surveyed  in basic reading and arithmetic skills
  • pre-primary (ages 3 to 5), elementary (6 to 14), and older children (15 to 16). 3-16 
• Conducted By: The ASER survey is coordinated by ASER Centre and facilitated by the NGO Pratham network.
  • Around 30,000 volunteers from local partner organisations in each district conduct the survey.

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Key Finding of ASER Survey 2024

• An overall improvement in foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) across states, led largely by government schools was observed as compared to the pre COVID levels of 2018.
• FLN Skills: The  majority of children in Classes 3 and 5 are still unable to read a Class 2 level text in their local language or do simple maths problems.
• Government School Enrollment: It saw a return to pre-pandemic levels 
  • Example: The percentage of 6-14-year-olds enrolled in government schools was 65.6% in 2018, rose to 72.9% in 2022, and has now fallen to 66.8%.
• Reading Skills: The Survey observed a modest recovery in reading skills across all the classes as compared to the pre COVID Levels in 2018, but still a majority of children in Classes 3 and 5 are unable to read a Class 2 level text.
  • Example:  23.4% of Class 3 students enrolled in government schools were able to read a text at a Class 2 level in 2024 as compared to 20.9% in 2018.
    • 76.6% of Class 3 students were unable to read the texts, which were provided in 19 languages.
• Basic Numeracy Skills: Children showed substantial improvement in both government and private schools in basic arithmetic (recognizing numbers, subtracting double-digit numbers with borrowing, and dividing three-digit numbers by one digit).
• • Example:  Among Class 5 students, the proportion of those who could solve the division problems has improved from 27.9% in 2018 to 30.7% in 2024, leaving  almost 70% still lagging behind.
• State wise Performance: Improvement varied among States in the number of children able to read the Class 2 text.
  • 4 to 5.9 percentage point increase: Himachal Pradesh and Bihar 
  • 6 to 9.9 percentage point increase: Odisha, Haryana, West Bengal, and Jharkhand 
  • 10 percentage point Increase: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh saw the most improvement compared to 2022 levels.
    • Uttar Pradesh saw a 15% point increase from 12.3% in 2018 to 27.9% in 2024.
• Digital Literacy: 89% of the teenagers aged 14 years to 16 years have access to smartphones at home with 31.4% possessing their own phones.
  • Usage: 57% used it for education-related matters and 76% for browsing social media.
  • Gender Safety: Boys were more aware of safety features on their phones than girls with 62% knowing how to block or report a profile, 55.2% knew how to make a profile private, and 57.7% knew how to change a password
• Reasons for the Improvement:
  • Foundational Learning as Key Focus Area: The government has accorded the highest priority to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary school by 2025 through the NEP 2020.
  • NIPUN Bharat: There has been focused messaging, along with focused financing for foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN). 
  • Assessment: Internal and external assessments has become part of the school education discourse with more engagement with teachers and students.
  • Training:  There is also an increasing level of engagement and coordination with states for teacher training etc.

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