Almost All Kids In India Are Going To School Now, Enrolment Is All Time High At 97.2 Per Cent

For the first time in history, less than 3 per cent of the children are not attending school and the dropout rates have also significantly reduced, a nationwide study has found.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2018 which was released last week found that the proportion of children age 6-14 who are not enrolled in school has fallen below 3% for the first time and stands at 2.8% in 2018.

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The annual report, which is based on the finding from a nationwide household survey which covered 354,944 households and 546,527 children in 596 districts also showed that there is considerable improvement in the number of girls getting enrolled in schools.

In the age group of 11 to 14, only 4.1% of them are out of school. The figure stood at 10.3% in 2006. Subsequently, there is a fall, the number of girls in the 15 to 16 age group were not enrolled in school. In 2018, only 13.5% of the girls were out of school in the age group, as against more than 20% in 2008.

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Interestingly enough, the enrolment rate in private schools have remained almost unchanged at 30.9% in 2019, and in five states, have in fact come down.

While there is definitely good news in terms of enrollments and falling dropout rates the competence level of students continues to remain a matter of concern.

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When it comes to basic reading skills, only 27.2 % of students in Std III could read at Std II level in 2018. Six states Punjab, Haryana, Mizoram, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Kerala have shown the most significant year-on-year improvement in this regard.

The figures showed considerable improvement when it comes to children enrolled in Std V, where 50.3% student could read at least Std II level text. The figures for Std VIII stated that about 73% can read at least Std II level text by the last year of compulsory schooling in India.

When it comes to Mathematical skills where students were tested if they can recognize numbers from 1 to 9, recognize numbers from 10 to 99, do a 2-digit numerical subtraction problem with borrowing, or correctly solve a numerical division problem, at STD III level, only 28.1% of them could solve it. 27.8% of all students in Std V in 2018 were able to do division and about 44% of all children in Std VIII could solve a 3-digit by 1-digit numerical division problem correctly.'

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The survey also took into account the infrastructure in schools including toilets and playgrounds. 66.4% of schools across the country had usable girls' toilets while schools with boundary walls stood at 64.4% in 2018.

91% of schools in rural India had a kitchen shed in 2018 while 74.2% of them had books other than textbooks available at the school.

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For the first time in 2018, ASER also looked into the availability of physical education and sports facilities at schools and found that about 8 out of 10 schools had a playground available for students, either within the school premises or close by. Interestingly more than 90% of schools in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Maharashtra had a playground.

But only 5.8% of all primary schools and 30.8% of upper primary schools had a physical education teacher available. But in Haryana, Rajasthan and Kerala, the proportion of schools with a physical education teacher is significantly higher than the national average.