Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023

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?

• 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.