16th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 (Rural) was published by Pratham foundation on November 17, 2021.ASER provides report on schooling status of children in the age group of 5-16 age across rural India including the ability to do basic reading & arithmetic tasks.
ASER 2021 Report – Highlights
This year, ASER followed a phone-based survey format, as field survey was not possible due to covid-19 pandemic.Survey was conducted during September-October 2021.
It tries to find out how children in aged between 5 and 16 studied at home since the onset of covid-19 pandemic as well as challenges that schools & households now face in the backdrop of opening up of schools.
Key Findings of the report Important findings of the ASER 2021 report are as follows:
As per report, there was an overall increase in proportion of children enrolled in govt. schools in between 2018 and 2020. Enrolment increased from 64.3% to 65.8%. But in 2021, enrolment suddenly increased to 70.3%.
Enrolment rate in private schools has decreased as compared to last year. In 2020, enrolment rate was 28.8% which decreased to 24.4% in 2021.
In 2021, 73.1% school respondents received training to implement Covid-19 prevention measures.
Even though availability of smartphones increased to 67.6% in 2021 as compared to 36.5% in 2018, around 79% of children in private schools had smartphone at home as opposed to 63.7% children in government school.
Number of school-going children taking tuition increased by 40% during closure of their schools.
52% of the respondents cited financial distress caused by covid-19 pandemic as the reason of increase in enrolments in government school.
