The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2016 of the Mumbai-based Pratham Education Foundation (estb.1994) — published after skipping a year — indicates that the continuous slide in primary education in rural India seems to have been halted with children’s reading and arithmetic capability improving marginally. It also reports improved infrastructure, particularly in toilets and drinking water availability. Interestingly, the report released on January 18, says there was no significant increase in private school enrolments between 2014 and 2016. The under-appreciated (not by EducationWorld) annual ASER report involves resource mobilisation on a massive scale. The 2016 survey commenced last September and involved networking with 500 local organisations and mobilisation of 25,000 volunteers (mainly college students) who fanned out across 589 rural districts to test the unprepared literacy and numeracy capability of 562,305 children (in the age group 3-16) of 350,232 households in 17,473 rural habitations, making it the largest learning assessment survey countrywide. Among the positives according to ASER 2016, is a marginal improvement in reading and comprehension (vernacular languages) in rural (mainly government) schools. “Nationally, the proportion of children in standard II who are able to read std I level texts has risen slightly from 40.2 percent in 2014 to 42.55 percent in 2016,” says the report, adding that reading capability of class VIII children hasn’t improved at all except marginally in the states of Manipur, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. Numeracy learning outcomes show an upward trend for the first time since 2010. The percentage of class III children who can do two-digit subtraction sums has increased to 27.7 percent from 25.4 percent in 2014. However, the capability of class VIII students to do division sums has continued to drop, a trend observed since 2010. Similarly, the ability of lower primary children to read English has remained unchanged, and has changed for worse in upper primary grades. “In 2016, the percentage of those who can read words has declined with roughly 60 percent able to explain the meanings of the words they read,” write the authors of the report. Although ASER 2016 reports marginally better learning outcomes as improvements, it’s pertinent to note that with barely a third of pupils are able to attain acceptable reading and numeracy capability and overall learning outcomes in rural primaries continue to be pathetic. Despite this, the proportion of children enrolled in private schools has remained unchanged at 30.5 percent in 2016, as compared to 30.8 percent in 2014. In general, although the authors of ASER 2016 try hard to find a silver lining to the huge cloud hanging over Indian education, the bigger picture is depressing. According to Rukmini Banerji, CEO of Pratham, it’s “something important for all of us to be worried about.” Delhi state’s deputy chief and education minister, Manish Sisodia, ascribes continuously poor learning outcomes in primary schools countrywide to official apathy and inertia. “Over 90 percent of government officials don’t have a dream for education in the country. Governments at the Centre and in the states need…
