The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2024 was released on Tuesday highlighting significant improvement in reading and arithmetic skills of students. According to the findings of the Survey, the Grade 3 students have recorded advancement in both reading and arithmetic skills in government schools.
“In 2024, the percentage of Grade 3 students able to read Grade 2-level text rose by an impressive 43 per cent, from 16.3 per cent in 2022 to 23.4 per cent. This recovery follows a prolonged decline due to learning loss during Covid, with basic reading levels at 20.9 per cent in 2018 before slipping further,” said an official statement.
“Arithmetic skills have shown a 30 per cent improvement: the proportion of Grade 3 children capable of performing basic subtraction rose from 25.9 per cent in 2021 to 33.7 per cent in 2024,” it further said.
The government's ambitious NIPUN Bharat Mission (National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy), launched in 2021, is expected to be the reason behind this transitional shift. The objective of this mission is to ensure that all children are able to achieve grade-level reading and numeracy skills by the end of Grade 2. The focus is evident in the policy's guidelines, which says, “Our highest priority must be to achieve universal foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) in primary school and beyond by 2026-27. ”
In order to achieve the results, the government had diverted Rs 9,235 crores under the Samagra Shiksha framework between 2021 and 2025. Of these, over Rs 2,000 crores were allocated annually for teacher training, assessments, and high-quality learning materials.
The increase in government school enrollment seen during the Covid-19 years seems to have reversed. Private school enrollment has been steadily rising since 2006 in rural India. The proportion of 6-14-year-olds enrolled in private schools rose from 18.7 per cent in 2006 to 30.8 per cent in 2014 and stayed at that level in 2018. During the pandemic years, there was a big jump in government school enrollment with the proportion of 6-14-year-old children enrolled in government schools rising from 65.6 per cent in 2018 to 72.9 per cent in 2022. This number is back to 66.8 per cent in 2024. This almost complete reversal back to 2018 levels is seen across grades as well as gender.
To summarise, ASER 2024 brings good news on the enrollment front. Out of school numbers for older age groups that had been falling steadily are well below their 2018 levels though marginally higher than the 2022 estimates, and government and private school enrollment is back to 2018 levels. This seems to confirm that the increase in government school enrollment observed during the Covid years was driven more by necessity rather than choice.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 is a nationwide rural household survey that reached 6,49,491 children in 17,997 villages across 605 rural districts in India. Facilitated by an NGO, "Pratham", in each surveyed district, a local organisation or institution conducted the survey.
For the first time, the nationwide household survey had a section on digital literacy, which applied to older children in the 14-16 age group. It included self-reported questions on access, ownership and use of smartphones, as well as a one-on-one assessment of some basic digital skills.
(With inputs from agencies)