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Journalism of Courage
After two years of a pandemic-induced school shutdown that kept children out of schools, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2022 has good news and bad. While children returned to school in huge numbers in 2022, belying fears that the economic crisis and displacement brought about by the pandemic would lead to dropouts, the grim news is that, as expected, the disruption led to a big drop in learning levels in most states, across both government and private schools and for both girls and boys.
According to the 17th ASER report released in New Delhi on Wednesday, as the pandemic ebbed, school enrolment touched a record high in 2022 — 98.4% children in the 6-14 age group are now in school, up from 97.2% in 2018, when the last full pre-pandemic survey was conducted by Pratham.
The proportion of girls not enrolled in schools has also reduced across age groups. For girls aged 11-14, this share dropped from 4.1% in 2018 to 2% in 2022. Back in 2006, the share of out-of-school girls in this age bracket stood at 10.3 per cent.
But it’s the drop in learning levels – foundational skills in reading and arithmetic – that has confirmed the worst fears about the pandemic and its impact on children.
“This fall is a huge drop, given how slowly the all-India numbers move, and confirms fears of large learning losses caused by the pandemic,” said Wilima Wadwa, Director, ASER Centre, in the report released today.
The numbers back her point.
For instance, between 2014 and 2018, learning levels in terms of reading and basic arithmetic had been rising gradually. The proportion of Class 3 students who were grade-ready or could read a Class 2 textbook had gone up from 23.6% in 2014 to 27.2% in 2018, while those in this grade who could do at least subtraction rose from 25.3% to 28.1%.
However, in 2022, the basic reading ability of children in Class 3 dipped by 6.8 percentage points (from 27.3% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2022), and that of students in Class 5 came down by 7.6 percentage points (from 50.4% in 2018 to 42.8% in 2022).
There has also been a drop in numeracy levels, though not as steep as for reading skills.
The proportion of children in Class 3 who could do at least subtraction fell from 28.2% in 2018 to 25.9% in 2022, and that of students in Class 5 fell from 27.9% in 2018 to 25.6% in 2022.
“Clearly, the pandemic has resulted in learning loss. However, what the ASER 2022 figures seem to suggest is that the loss is much greater in reading as compared to arithmetic,” said Wadhwa.
Despite these big drops, a comparative analysis of learning outcomes in Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal – the only states where Pratham undertook learning outcome surveys in the pandemic year of 2021 – suggests that there has been an attempt to recover lost ground once schools reopened after the pandemic.
In Chhattisgarh, for instance, the proportion of Class 3 children who can read a Class 2 textbook had dropped to an alarming 12.3% in 2021, down from 29.8% in 2018, only to bounce back to 24.2% in 2022. In West Bengal, that number rose from 29.5% in 2021 to 33% in 2022.
In the case of maths, the share of children in Class 3 in Chhattisgarh with the ability to solve basic problems fell from 19.3% in 2018 to 9% in 2021, only to rise to 19.6% in 2022. In Karnataka, that number rose from 17.3% in 2021 to 22.2% in 2022 and in West Bengal, from 29.4% in 2021 to 34.2% in 2022.
The survey points to what has been a trend for over a decade now – a small, steady increase in the proportion of children availing private tuitions. Between 2018 and 2022, this proportion increased further – from 26.4% to 30.5%.
The ASER report also highlights another trend that was reflected in other reports such as the government’s UDISE+ data that came out last year. ASER 2022 states that nationally, the percentage of children aged 11 to 14 who are enrolled in government schools has risen from 65% in 2018 to 71.7% in 2022.
While the period from 2006 to 2014 saw a steady decrease in proportion of children in government schools, it plateaued for the next four years, only to rise to 71.7% in 2022.
On the shift from private to government schools, Pratham Foundation CEO Rukmini Banerji said the phenomenon can be attributed to several factors, including job losses and the closure of budget private schools in rural areas during the pandemic.
“If the family income goes down or becomes more uncertain, it is likely that parents may not be able to afford private school fees. Hence, they are likely to pull their children out of private schools and put them in government schools. Also, in rural areas, most private schools are of the low-cost or budget variety, many of which had to shut down during Covid,” she said.
The ASER survey covered 7 lakh children in 19,060 villages across 616 districts in the country.
