Reshma Ravishanker (Bengaluru)

The 14th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 published by the highly-respected Pratham Education Foundation and released on January 28 in New Delhi, has bad tidings for the southern state of Karnataka (pop.69 million).

This annual survey of primary education assesses the learning outcomes of three-16-year-old rural children in basic reading and arithmetic in 26 states and two Union territories. Although ASER 2024 reports marginally improved reading and arithmetic levels nationally, Karnataka, which prides itself on hosting some of India’s top-ranked private schools and colleges, presents a study in contrast.

According to ASER 2024, in this southern state, 84.1 percent (cf. the national average of 72.9) of rural class III students cannot read class II level textbooks and 66 percent of class V students cannot read class II texts (cf. 51.2 percent nationally). Shockingly, the learning outcomes of primary/elementary school children in rural Karnataka are worse than of primary children in educationally backward Chhattisgarh where 75.1 percent of class III and 45.6 percent of class V children can’t read class II texts.

Learning outcomes in basic arithmetic in the state, which bills itself the Silicon Valley of India, are also dismaying. ASER 2024 indicates that 77.1 percent (against the national average of 66.3 percent) of rural class III children cannot do simple subtraction sums and 79.1 percent of class V children cannot do simple division sums (cf. 69.3 percent nationally). Shocking but true, the notoriously educationally and industrially backward states of Uttar Pradesh (class V can’t do division: 68.2 percent) and Bihar (67.5 percent) have outperformed Karnataka whose administrative capital Bengaluru is the country’s #1 hub of digital start-ups and unicorns.

ASER 2024 also reveals that while several states such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh show substantial improvements in reading and arithmetic learning levels surpassing pre-pandemic (2018) levels, Karnataka’s remedial education record is dismal. In 2018, 80.7 percent of class III children couldn’t read class II texts; in 2024, 84.1 percent cannot.

Well-informed academics in this peninsular state believe a causative factor behind this phenomenon is deteriorating school infrastructure in rural Karnataka. ASER 2024 reports that 27.7 percent of schools in the state don’t provide drinking water, 6.5 percent lack girls toilets, 10.5 percent don’t have libraries, and ironically for India’s most IT-savvy state, 64.2 percent of schools are without a single computer.

Comments Prof. A.S. Seetharamu, former professor of education, Institute of Social & Economic Change, Bengaluru: “ASER 2024 is a wake-up call to the state government to invest in education rather than in handouts such as free electricity, bus rides for women etc and to make teachers accountable for raising students’ learning outcomes. This is a serious matter which requires urgent government attention as high-quality primary school education is the prerequisite for success in higher education and industry.”

Prof. B.S. Rishikesh, Head, Hub of Education, Law and Policy, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, believes the Karnataka government needs to switch focus from higher to foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) as some traditionally backward states have done to record improvement in ASER 2024.

“FLN learning levels in Karnataka are disheartening. It’s shocking that a mere 34 percent of class V children can read class II texts. This means that even after five years of schooling, the majority of students in rural Karnataka, irrespective of the type of school they are in — government or private — are unable to read. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 clearly states that FLN should be the prime focus of all states. Karnataka needs to launch a statewide FLN mission with missionary zeal to ensure that children acquire foundational literacy and numeracy skills by class III,” says Rishikesh.

Such sensible advice to invest in developing human resources from earliest age is likely to fall on deaf ears as the Congress state government has allocated 25 percent of its annual revenue to fulfill its handouts guarantees including 200 units of free power for every applicant household, 10 kg rice per person in below poverty line (BPL) households, free-of-charge travel for women in government buses, Rs.2,000 per month for women heads of family and Rs.3,000 for unemployed graduates. Against this Rs.53,674 crore outlay for freebies, only Rs.44,422 crore was allocated for educating Karnataka’s 12 million in-school children.

Evidently learning outcomes of the state’s politicians and establishment are not high either. They still prefer to distribute fish rather than teach the state’s high-potential population how to fish.