ASER 2022, the annual education status report reveals a significant dip in learning levels due to the pandemic. Read to better understand the education deficits.
What does the ASER 2022 reveal?
As per the newest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), a significant dip was observed in abilities related to reading and calculating among class 2 students between the years 2018 and 2022. The report also picked up recovery signs since the schools are reopening. Released on Wednesday, the report captures the status of foundational numeracy and literacy in India.
“This fall is a huge drop, given how slowly the all-India numbers move and confirms fears of large learning losses caused by the pandemic,” stated Wilima Wadhwa. Wilima Wadhwa is the director of the ASER center. In her view, numbers are slowly rising; For example, between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of class 3 kids with the ability to read standard II texts saw a rise from 23.6 percent to 27.2 percent. In 2020, it was 20.5 percent.
More on the educational report
The ASER 2022 covered a total of seven lakh children across a total of 616 districts. Following the pandemic, the survey became phone-based as an attempt of focusing on the exploration of digital inequality and enrollment. The reduction in numeracy levels is smaller than those in the reading levels. “Clearly, the pandemic has resulted in a learning loss. However, what the ASER 2022 figures seem to suggest is that the loss is much greater in reading as compared to arithmetic,” stated Wadhwa.
Additionally, as per a study by the NCERT, about 37 percent of class 3 students had limited numerical skills such as the identification of numbers and mathematical operations. “Extrapolating from the experience of the three states for which we have 2021 data, we can assume that other states also experienced large learning losses during the pandemic. However, once schools reopened, states made a concerted effort to build or re-build foundational competencies, which has resulted in a partial and in some cases, a full recovery,” she added.
