Basic skills poor

Titled ‘Beyond basics’, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2023 provides a snapshot of children’s schooling and learning outcomes in rural India. It shows that most children in the 14-18 age group have such a poor command of the basics that they are unable to even match the abilities expected of students of Classes II or III. With 25 per cent of the children not able to fluently read any text in their regional language, over half failing to do simple division exercises and more than 42 per cent drawing a blank while reading simple sentences in English, it is imperative to introspect and come up with remedial steps.

The findings are a wake-up call to identify and plug the gaps in the teaching imparted to children in primary classes. Similar deficiencies have been exposed in various surveys conducted over the years, with the Covid-19 pandemic especially impacting studies as regular classes were disrupted. Rural students are a particularly disadvantaged lot as issues plaguing government schools have remained unresolved for years. There is little that can be said for school infrastructural enhancement; state governments continue to grapple with teacher absenteeism and vacant posts in schools located in remote or interior areas.

The only positive outcome revealed by the ASER is the expansion of digital literacy as 90 per cent of the respondents possess smartphones and know how to operate them — with boys having an edge over girls. Perhaps the key to improving literacy in the country is embedded in this finding. Policymakers could explore a hybrid teaching mode to reach out effectively to the rural children.