Minor improvement in English reading skills among primary, middle school children: ASER 2022

The findings show that nationally, the children’s ability to read simple English sentences has stayed more or less at the 2016 level for children in class V - from 24.7 per cent in 2016 to 24.5 per cent in 2022.

In case of class VIII, the share has dropped from 47.1 per cent to 46.7 per cent. (File image)

3 min readNew Delhi IJan 22, 2023 03:33 PM IST First published on: Jan 18, 2023 at 05:58 PM IST

Primary and middle school students in the country have made very little gains in picking up English reading skills over the past decade, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022, which shows that in class VIII, the proportion of students who can read English sentences has shrunk between 2012 and 2022.

While ASER primarily focuses on evaluating basic reading and arithmetic skills to capture learning outcomes, every few years, it also assesses basic English reading skills of children. It was introduced in 2007 and repeated in 2009, 2021, 2014 and 2016.

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The latest round also tested students on this count. The findings show that nationally, the children’s ability to read simple English sentences has stayed more or less at the 2016 level for children in class V — from 24.7 per cent in 2016 to 24.5 per cent in 2022.

In the case of class VIII, the share has dropped from 47.1 per cent to 46.7 per cent.

The stagnancy on this parameter was in fact visible even before the pandemic set in. For instance, the percentage of children who can read English sentences rose only marginally from 22.6 per cent in 2012 to 24.0 per cent in 2014 to 24.7 per cent in 2016.

Among class V students, it dropped from 47.1 per cent in 2012 to 46.8 per cent in 2014. It further dipped to 45.3 per cent in 2018, before improving to 46.7 per cent in 2022, still remaining below 2012 level.

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The survey also counted other categories of children including those who cannot even read capital letters, as well as those who can read small letters, or simple words. The proportion of children who cannot even read capital letters ranges from 48.3 per cent in class I to 4 per cent in class VIII.

“Of children in standard III who can read words but not sentences, in 2022 about half could tell the meaning of the words they had read (55.3 per cent). For children who are able to read sentences, comprehension increases in higher grades. For example, 55.3 per cent of all standard III children who can read sentences in English were able to tell the meaning of the sentences, while 68.5 per cent of all standard VIII children who can read sentences could do so,” states the report.

The nationwide citizen-led rural household survey reached almost 7 lakh children in over 19,000 villages across 616 districts in India. Director, ASER centre Wilima Wadhwa said the report would be useful to understand the impact of the pandemic on school education.

“There was no nationally representative data to evaluate the impact that the pandemic was having on learning outcomes. ASER 2022 will be useful to understand the impact of the pandemic. ASER 2022 is a function of both learning loss and recovery,” she said at the launch of the report.