ASER Report: Government schools outshine private in post-Covid learning recovery, but teen enrollment drops

NEW DELHI: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 released on Tuesday highlights how reading levels among children of Classes 1 to 8 in government schools have shown significant improvement following the Covid pandemic-related fall. Showing post-Covid recovery in some states the improvement of reading levels is more than 10 percentage points. However, 76% of Class 3-level students still can’t read a Class 2-level story.

There is improvement in case of basic arithmetic as well – in fact, the rate of improvement is higher than that of basic reading levels. For instance at Class 3-level, at least 33.7% students were able to solve a numerical subtraction.

There is also a constant increase in enrollment in pre-primary institutions with anganwadi centres continuing to be the biggest service providers in pre-primary age groups.

However, there is a worrying trend in the enrollment of older children. In the age group of 15-16 years, the proportion of girls yet to be enrolled has increased from 7.9% in 2022 to 8.1% in 2024. In states such as Madhya Pradesh (16.1%), Uttar Pradesh (15%), Rajasthan (12.7%), Mizoram (12.3%), the figure is higher than 10 percentage points.

ASER is a nationwide rural household survey that reached 6,49,491 children in 17,997 villages across 605 rural districts in India. The report is conducted by non-profit organisation Pratham.

Wilima Wadhwa, director of ASER Centre, writes, “ASER 2024 estimates are extremely useful for a variety of reasons. They provide one more data point after 2022 to verify if the changes observed post-pandemic have changed the trend or if the country has reverted to the earlier trend line. On the learning front, states have continued to push ahead with a variety of measures to improve foundational learning levels in primary school. Given that the ASER assessment is essentially a floor-level foundational learning assessment, data from ASER 2024 will also help track the progress of NIPUN Bharat across the country.”

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ASER Report: Reading level

The ASER survey assesses whether a child can read letters, words, a simple paragraph at Class-1 level of difficulty, or a “story” at Class-2 level of difficulty.

In 2024, for Class 3 nationally, basic reading levels in government schools are the highest ever since the inception of ASER survey in 2005.

“The percentage of Class 3 children able to at least read Class 2-level text was 20.9% in 2018. This figure fell to 16.3% in 2022, and has increased to 23.4% in 2024. The improvement in government schools is higher than the corresponding recovery for private schools,” stated the survey.

States such as Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, and Maharashtra have shown an improvement of above 10 percentage points.

The proportion of Class 5 children in government schools who can read a Class 2-level text fell from 44.2% in 2018 to 38.5% in 2022, but has recovered to 44.8% in 2024. The survey shows considerable improvements also in the reading levels of Class 5 children in private schools, which had fallen from 65.1% in 2018 to 56.8% in 2022. It has now increased to 59.3%.

Mizoram (64.9%) and Himachal Pradesh (64.8%) had the highest proportion of Class 5 children in government schools who are able to read Class 2-level text.

Reading levels also increased among children in Class 8 government schools, which had fallen from 69% in 2018 to 66.2% in 2022, but then rose to 67.5% in 2024. Though most states have shown improvement, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana have seen a decline in reading proficiency.

For the ASER 2024 report, surveyors visited 15,728 government schools with primary sections, among which 8,504 were primary schools and 7,224 were schools which also had upper primary or higher grades.

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ASER Survey: Arithmetic level

The ASER survey assesses whether a child can recognise numbers from 1 to 9; from 11 to 99; do a 2-digit numerical subtraction problem with borrowing; or correctly solve a numerical division problem (3 digit by 1 digit).

Though the numbers are still on the lower side, the basic arithmetic levels show substantial improvement in both government and private schools, reaching the highest level in over a decade.

For Class 3, the percentage of students able to at least do a numerical subtraction problem was 28.2% in 2018 and 25.9% in 2022. This figure has increased to 33.7% in 2024. Among government school students, this figure went from 20.9% in 2018 to 20.2% in 2022, and then increasing to 27.6% in 2024. Private school students showed comparatively lesser improvement since 2022.

In Class 5, the proportion of students who can at least do a numerical division problem has also improved – 27.9% in 2018, 25.6% in 2022 and then 30.7% in 2024. This change is also driven primarily by government schools.

For Class 8, the performance of students in basic arithmetic shows constant improvement – from 44.1% in 2018 to 44.7% in 2022, and 45.8% in 2024.

Student enrollment at pre-primary level

The ASER report also shows major shifts in levels and patterns of enrollment in the pre-primary age group.

Increasing enrollment at pre-primary classes

The states with enrollment exceeding 90% in pre-primary institutions for 5-year-old age include Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Nagaland.

As per National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 the age of entry in Class 1 has been set at 6 years. The proportion of children who are “underage” (age 5 or below) is decreasing over time. In 2018, this figure was 25.6%, in 2022 it stood at 22.7%, and in 2024 it is at its lowest at 16.7%.

“In Gujarat, the decrease was particularly striking, with the figure dropping from 36.4% in 2022 to less than 4% in 2024,” said the survey.

Since 2018, more than half of all children aged 3 and 4 have been enrolled in anganwadi centres. In Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Karnataka, over 75% children are enrolled in anganwadis in both these age groups.

However, at 5-year-old-level one-third of them attend a private school or pre-school. This figure was 37.3% in 2018, fell to 30.8% in 2022, and again increased to 37.5% in 2024.

“Going against this trend are Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, where enrollment in government institutions has increased substantially since 2018 (11.2 percentage points in Punjab and 7.6 percentage points in Jammu and Kashmir). In both these states, this trend is driven by an increase in enrollment in pre-primary classes in government schools,” said the survey.

In 2024, private school enrollment returned to pre-Covid levels. Enrollment in private institutes has been around 30% nationally for rural children (age 6-14) for over 10 years.

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Multigrade classes, attendance

The ASER survey highlights the existence of small schools and multigrade classrooms. The proportion of government primary schools with less than 60 students enrolled shows a sharp increase, rising from 44% in 2022 to 52.1% in 2024.

Two-thirds of Class 1 and Class 2 classrooms in primary schools were multigrade, with students from more than one grade sitting together.

The report also reveals an increase in both student and teacher attendance in government primary schools. Average student attendance increased from 72.4% in 2018 to 73% in 2022 to 75.9% in 2024.

Average teacher attendance increased from 85.1% in 2018 to 86.8% in 2022, and 87.5% in 2024.