The Annual State of Education Report (ASER) 2017, has been released.
What is ASER?
The ASER report is being published by a NGO called Pratham.
ASER report is a household-based survey that collects information on children's schooling status and basic learning outcomes in almost every rural district in the country.
The ASER survey is an enormous participatory exercise that has involved about 500 organizations and upwards of 25,000 volunteers every year.
Estimates of children's schooling and learning status are generated at district, state and national levels.
ASER is the only annual source of data on children's learning outcomes available in India.
The ASER model has been adapted for use by thirteen other countries across three continents.
What are the recent findings of the report?
In India 125 million children between 14 and 18 years of age are ill-equipped to read, write or do even basic arithmetic.
It is revealing that the gender divide in intellect levels worsens with rise in age, as girls are often compelled to drop out of school for a variety of reasons.
In India 76 per cent of teenage girls have no access to the computer or internet, as against 49 per cent in the case of boys.
Boys expressed their wish to join the army or police, while girls wished to be teachers, gendered choice of careers remains the norm for society at large.
The report refers to a lack of interest in pursuing education in agriculture.
The situation calls for a shift in policy priorities, as pointed out by Economic Survey 2016-17.
What are the suggestions of the report?
Government need to focus more on increasing the number of teachers, providing basic amenities and digital infrastructure.
It spotlights urgent need to focus on creating excellence among educators and suggests to plug the vacancies in teaching posts.
Centre and State expenditure on education must increase from 3.2 per cent of GDP, inching up closer to the global norm of above 5 per cent.
Instead of squeezing salaries in a bid to curb the revenue deficit, and governments need to capitalise social sector expenditure.
Cognition skills could improve when rural students can relate to the subject matter, through which farm sector and education reforms can go hand in hand.
