Express View on ASER report: Cues for reform

Subject :Schemes

Section: Education

Context:

Latest ASER report has significant pointers on how country could use education to leverage its demographic dividend

More on news:

The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) focuses on an age group that is critical to India unlocking its demographic dividend — 14- 18-year-olds in rural areas.
The report has seen a heartening trend of more students transitioning to secondary education.
ASER 2023 notes that “today more children in India have more years of schooling than ever before”.
The 2023 survey focuses on children’s ability to apply reading and math skills to everyday situations and their aspirations.
It also sought to capture their access to digital technology and whether they possess the skills to use it.
The latest report doesn’t see enrollment as an end in itself.

Key findings:

About a fourth of those surveyed find difficulty in reading a Grade 2 level text in the local language.
More than half struggles with arithmetic skills in which they should have been proficient in by Grade 5.
This is a serious deficit that has a bearing on the quality of the country’s labor force.
Only 6 percent of the surveyed are currently doing vocational courses
There is an increasing pressure on young students amidst acute academic competition.
The difficulties of a section of learners get compounded as they have to juggle academic requirements with responsibilities like working in family farms.
The use of smartphones for education today is way less than that for entertainment.
About 90% of surveyed households had smartphones.
Almost 95% boys and 90% girls could use a smartphone.

Key suggestions:

ASER suggests reforming pedagogic processes to reduce pressures on such students.
The increasing use of smartphones in rural areas can be used as an opportunity to extend education, and design classrooms that are flexible with time and schedules.
There is a need to nudge students and their parents to use digital technologies for learning.
NEP 2020 envisions embedding digital technologies in the educational landscape.
China is able to realize its demographic dividend to a large extent by prudent reforms in its technical and vocational education and training systems

About ASER report:

It is a nationwide survey of rural education and learning outcomes in terms of reading and arithmetic skills.
It is conducted by the NGO Pratham for the last 15 years.
It has been conducted every year since 2005 in almost all rural districts of India.
It is the largest citizen-led survey in India.
It is a household-based rather than school-based survey.
It is also the only annual source of information on children’s learning outcomes available in India today.
It uses Census 2011 as the sampling frame and continues to be an important national source of information about children’s foundational skills across the country.
The ASER 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ survey was carried out among 34,745 young respondents in 28 rural districts in 26 states, including two districts each in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.