Why is it in the news ?
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The latest Annual Status of Education (ASER) report 2018 has been released on January 15, 2019.
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The report is released by NGO Pratham. It is a result of its annual survey.
More in the news
- Findings of the report:
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More than half of Class VIII students cannot correctly solve a numerical division problem and more than a quarter of them cannot read a primary-level text.
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Those figures are worse than they were a decade ago.
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In 2008, 84.8% of Class VIII students could read a text meant for Class II; by 2014, only 74.6% could do so, and by 2018, that percentage had fallen further to 72.8%.
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Less than 30% of students in Class III are actually at their grade level, that is, able to read a Class II text and do double-digit subtraction.
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The ASER survey covered almost 5.5 lakh children between the ages of 3 and 16 in 596 rural districts across the country.
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In an encouraging trend, it found that enrolment is increasing and the percentage of children under 14 who are out of school is less than 4%.
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The gender gap is also shrinking, even within the older cohort of 15- and 16-year-olds.
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Only 13.6% of girls of that age are out of school ”” the first time the figure has dropped below the 15% mark.