Government school students do better: ASER report

The findings suggest marginal improvement compared to last year’s analysis. Some of the findings say that the reading levels of government school children was higher than that of private school students. However, the ability to learn Mathematics has not shown any signs of improvement. 

For Class 3 students, the reading level, which was 15.9 per cent in 2014 has increased to 17.7 per cent. However, the was no improvement in their ability to subtract, which was recorded as 24.8 per cent as compared 24.3 per cent in 2014. Meanwhile, the ability to read has decreased by over three per cent among students of private schools as compared to their counterparts in government schools. 

The study which sampled Class 5 students reflected that the reading levels of Government school students, which was at 49.9 per cent in 2014 had dropped to 49.4 per cent. However, among private school students the data was recorded as 37 per cent in 2016 while compared to 40.2 per cent in 2014. 

On the brighter side, the survey finds that 99.6% children (aged 6-14) are enrolled in schools and attendance in schools has been around 90% since 2010, which is one of the highest in the country. 

The extensive survey carried out in 31 districts, 917 villages and 18,560 households also found that almost 30% children in Class 8 are finishing upper primary education without equipping themselves with adequate reading skills.