Drop in reading ability

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2022, has concluded that the basic reading ability of school students across all classes has dropped in recent years. The decline has been noticed for both boys and girls in government as well as private schools in most states. The worst performers are Kerala (the state with the highest literacy rate in India), Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. According to this field-based nationwide survey, conducted after a gap of four years, basic maths skills have declined to 2018 levels, with Tamil Nadu, Mizoram and Haryana being the laggards. Children returned to schools last year after a prolonged closure due to Covid-induced disruptions. The findings with regard to reading and maths skills indicate that both teachers and students are finding it hard to reorient themselves in the post-pandemic period. The emphasis on online classes for two years has taken its toll on learning outcomes. This calls for corrective steps to plug the gaps. Schools need to be proactive and innovative in overcoming the challenges thrown up by the pandemic. The Ministry of Education, which launched the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) in 2021, should identify the problems impeding the smooth implementation of this mission, which aims to achieve ‘universal foundational literacy and numeracy in primary classes’.

It is also worrying that the proportion of students taking private tuitions after school has risen by more than four percentage points over the pre-Covid-19 levels. This is a sad reflection on the schools’ performance, which has forced students to take the tuition route, leaving them little or no time for self-study or recreation.

On the bright side, the report has revealed that over 98 per cent of the students in the age bracket of 6-14 years are now enrolled in schools across the country. The rise in the number of girls in schools shows that government initiatives such as Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao are on the right track. High enrolment should be complemented by qualitative improvement of academic standards. Incentivising states to raise the bar can make a difference.

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