36% rural youth cant name India’s capital, finds survey 

36% rural youth cant name India’s capital, finds survey 

Context

2017 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)

Focus of the survey

The survey looks ‘Beyond Basics’, exploring a wider set of domains beyond foundational reading and arithmetic in an attempt to throw light on the status and abilities of youth in this age group.”

What is ASER?

Established in 2008, ASER Centre is Pratham’s autonomous research and assessment unit. ASER Centre promotes a culture of evidence-based decision making, and seeks to develop and use simple yet rigorous methods to generate evidence on scale on the outcomes of social sector programs, especially education

ASER report

ASER Centre’s flagship activity is the Annual Status of Education Report (commonly known as the ASER report), a household-based survey that collects information on children’s schooling status and basic learning outcomes in almost every rural district in the country

• The ASER survey is an enormous participatory exercise that has involved about 500 organizations and upwards of 25,000 volunteers every year since 2005. Estimates of children’s schooling and learning status are generated at district, state and national levels
• ASER is the only annual source of data on children’s learning outcomes available in India today, and is often credited with changing the focus of discussions on education in India from inputs to outcomes
• The ASER model has been adapted for use by thirteen other countries across three continents. These countries came together organically to form the People’s Action for Learning (PAL) Network, with a secretariat housed in Nairobi

Findings of the latest ASER report

• Fourteen per cent of rural youth in the age group of 14-18 failed to identify the map of India
• 36% of those surveyed did not know that Delhi is the capital of India
• 79% answered the questions ‘Which State do you live in?’ and 42 % could point to their home State on the map
• Most 14-18 year olds are in the formal education system — only 14.4% are not currently enrolled in school or college. However, this number varies a lot with age
  • Poor enrolment ratio: At age 14, only 5.3% are not enrolled, but by age 17 this percentage quadruples to 20.7% and further increases to 30.2% at age 18. With almost 10% of India’s population in this age group, these percentages translate into large numbers of youth who are not in the formal education system
• Gender aspect in enrolment: The report also highlights the gender aspect of enrolment, with the number of girls falling sharply with age. While the enrolment ratios for boys and girls are almost the same at 14, at 18 years 32% of girls are not enrolled, as against 28% for boys.
• About 25% of this age group still cannot read basic texts fluently in their own language. More than half struggle with division (3 digit by 1 digit) problems. Only 43% are able to do such problems correctly
• 53% of all 14 year-olds in the sample can read English sentences

Difference b/w ASER 2017 report an previous ASER reports

Whereas previous ASER reports have reached almost all rural districts in the country to generate estimates that are considered representative at district, State, and national levels, ASER 2017 was conducted in 28 districts spread across 24 States and generated only district level estimates