School education scenario in Assam moderate: Report

 STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) - 2022 has found a moderate scenario in school education in Assam – in the government and private sectors.

Pratham Education Foundation released its 17th all-India survey ASER – 2022 today.

The ASER 2022 reached 26 districts in rural Assam. It surveyed a total of 15,413 households and 25,502 children in the age group 3 to 16.

In 2022, ASER surveyors of Assam visited 740 government schools with primary sections — 604 primary schools and 136 upper primary schools.

The key findings of the survey in Assam are –

Overall enrollment (age group 6-14) 98.7% of the children in the state are enrolled in schools. The enrolment of government schools in 2022 increased to 71.9% from 71.1% in 2018.

The proportion of girls who are not currently enrolled:

The proportion of boys not in school is higher than that of girls. 9.9% of the boys and 4.2% of the girls are not in school in the age bracket of 15-16 years in the state.

Enrollment in the pre-primary age group

In Assam, 80.1% of 3-year-olds were enrolled in Anganwadi centres as compared to 70.5% in 2018. Among 4-year-olds, Anganwadi enrollment has increased from 68.1% (2018) to 71.5% (2022). In Assam, 29.5% of 6-year-olds are enrolled in pre-primary schools, including Anganwadi in 2022 which decreased from 43.8% in 2018.

Reading

The percentage of children in Standard III in government or private schools who can read at Standard II level dropped from 27.3% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2022 at the national level.

In Assam, this figure has also dropped from 19.9% in 2018 to 17.9% in 2022.

Nationally, the proportion of children enrolled in Standard V in government or private schools who can at least read at Standard II level text fell from 50.5% in 2018 to 42.8% in 2022.

Assam, this figure has also dropped from 40.1% in 2018 to 36.5% in 2022.

Although drops in basic reading ability are visible among Standard VIII students as well, these are smaller as compared to observed trends in Standard III and Standard V. Nationally, 69.6% of children enrolled in Standard VIII in government or private schools can read at least basic text in 2022, falling from 73% in 2018.

In Assam, this figure has increased from 60.8% in 2018 to 68.8% in 2022.

Arithmetic

The All India figure for children in Standard III who are able to at least do subtraction dropped from 28.2% in 2018 to 25.9% in 2022.

For Assam, this figure has dropped from 29.8% in 2018 to 24.5% in 2022.

The proportion of children in Standard V across India who can do division has also fallen slightly, from 27.9% in 2018 to 25.6% in 2022.

For Assam, this figure has also dropped from 17.8% in 2018 to 15.2% in 2022.

The performance of Standard VIII in basic arithmetic is more varied. Nationally, the proportion of children who can do division has increased slightly, from 44.1% in 2018 to 44.7% in 2022.

For Assam, this figure has dropped from 31.5% in 2018 to 27.7% in 2022.

Other indicators

In Assam, average teacher attendance in primary schools has increased slightly, from 86.9% in 2018 to 90.7% in 2022. Similarly, student attendance in primary schools has increased from 73.2% in 2018 to 76.4% in 2022.

In Assam, textbooks had been distributed to all grades in 97.7% of the primary schools and in 94.1% of the upper primary schools.

In Assam, 65% of all primary schools had received a directive to implement Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) activities with their students and 81% of the schools had at least one teacher who had received the training on FLN.

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