ASER 2023: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), based on a survey led by the Pratham Foundation, was released today, January 17. This will be the second year since the return of the key national survey that captures the state of foundational literacy and numeracy in the country.

Due to Covid-19, the Pratham Foundation’s ASER became phone-based and focused on exploring digital inequality and enrollment levels in schools. However, in 2022, Pratham resumed its field survey and surveyors covered several cities of the country to hold face-to-face interactions with children and teachers in rural India to capture the state of learning.

This year, ASER focuses on 14-18 year-olds & provides evidence on enrollment patterns, learning levels and their aspirations. It also explores digital access & skills among youth in rural India.

In ASER 2022, around 7 lakh candidates from 19,060 schools in 616 districts were surveyed to calculate the learning outcomes post pandemic on school children. The 2022 report revealed that almost all (98.4 per cent) students in the age bracket of 6-14 years are now enrolled in schools. The number has gone from 96.6 per cent in 2010 to 96.7 per cent in 2014 and 97.2 per cent in 2018 to 98.4 per cent in 2022. There was an increase of 7.3 percentage points in government school enrollment from 2018 to 2022. The ASER report said the survey was conducted across nine districts, 262 villages, and 4,859 households in Manipur. The survey highlighted that Manipur has the lowest government school enrolment percentage among northeastern states.

Additionally, 2022 was the first time the percentage of children currently not enrolled in schools dropped to 2 per cent or below. Even after prolonged school closures during the pandemic period, proportion of children not enrolled in school continued to decline between 2018 and 2022.