Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2017 has been brought out by NGO Pratham.
What is the report on?
Previous ASERs focused on 6-14 year olds and have reached almost all rural districts to make estimates representative at district, State, and national levels.
However, ASER 2017 focuses on an older age group i.e. youth who are 14 to 18 years old.
Also, it was conducted in 28 districts spread across 24 States and generated only district level estimates.
The survey looks 'Beyond Basics', exploring a wider set of domains beyond foundational reading and arithmetic abilities of youth.
What are the highlights?
Enrolment - In 14-18 age group, around 14% are not currently enrolled in school or college.
However, this number varies a lot with age, ranging from around 5% at age 14 to around 30% at age 18.
The low 5% at age 14 is a positive outcome of the compulsory education for 6-14 years under the RTE.
The enrolment ratios for boys and girls are almost the same at 14 years.
However, at 18 years 32% of girls are not enrolled, as against 28% for boys.
There are also discrete differences among States on the number of youth who are not enrolled in appropriate levels of schooling.
Knowledge - 14% of rural youth in the age group of 14-18 failed to identify the map of India.
A worrying 36% of those surveyed did not know that Delhi is the capital of India.
60-80% of them cannot even tell the time correctly.
About 25% of this age group still cannot read basic texts fluently in their own language.
53% of all 14 year-olds in the sample can read English sentences.
More than half in the age group struggle with simple division (3 digit by 1 digit) problems.
Besides, the report points to a massive digital divide, with poor access to facilities.
In this again, girls were worse off in terms of access to computers and the Internet.
What does it imply?
Almost 10% of India's population falls in the 14-18 group.
Thus the 14% of the un-enrolled population in this translates to a total of 125 million young Indians out of formal education system.
The enrolment scenario highlights gender discrimination, with the number of girls falling sharply with age.
India's predominantly youth population is seen as a demographic dividend.
But the education scenario fall short of capitalising on this factor and deriving an economic dividend.
As, a large number of Indian youths lack even basic employability.
Successive studies point to progress in raw enrolment of children in school, with poor achievement on learning outcomes.
What should be done?
Policy makers must acknowledge that all expenditure on good education is bound to have a multiplier effect on productivity.
The right to free and compulsory education must be extended to the 14-18 age group as well, beyond the 6 to 14 at present.
Guaranteed inclusion will empower those in the 14-18 age group and help them acquire finishing education.
This is so vital for their participation in the workforce, as India lacks trained manpower to boost its manufacturing capabilities.
Equipping them with the skills, especially job-oriented vocational capabilities is essential.
Learning deficits highlight the need for pedagogic tools that synchronise knowledge with lived realities.
Scaling up access to digital facilities by bringing all children under the umbrella of a school, college or training institution is desirable.
