ASPIRING YOUTHS FALL SHORT OF BASIC EDUCATIONAL ABILITIES

28,000 from 26 rural districts across 24 states surveyed

About 60 per cent of the rural youth have never used the computer or the internet, 57 per cent cannot solve a division problem, 40 per cent struggle to tell the time of the day in hours and minutes, and about 14 per cent cannot measure length using the reference scale.

These are the findings of the 2017 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) on assessing the rural youth in the age group 14-18, facilitated by the Pratham Education Foundation.

In less simple tests of scholastic ability/comprehension, only 54 per cent could understand three of four instructions written on a food packet, and further down the complexity line, only 38 per cent could calculate the price of a product after a discount, and only 15 per cent could calculate a loan repayment amount exercise.

This is the 13th year of the ASER surveys, which detail the state of education in the country through extensive studies, but this is the first time an age group of 14-18, representing the upcoming youth and not children, has been the focus at Pratham.

The report classified the parameters to be assessed under four broad heads: activity, ability, awareness and aspirations, representing, but not limited to, enrolment, arithmetic and reading ability, use of computers and ambition, respectively.

“The right to education (RTE) act was enacted in 2009, and today in 2017— eight years later—we have a first- of-its-kind situation where the first cohort of children have completed 8 years of mandatory schooling, and we thought it was imperative to take a note of their abilities and aspirations,” Rukmini Banerji, chief executive officer of Pratham said.

Chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian, and K. P. Krishnan, secretary at the ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship discussed the report and other youth issues with Madhav Chavan, co-founder and president of Pratham, who moderated the panel discussion.

In the panel discussion, while K. P. Krishnan held that a rethink of the pedagogic nature of education is necessary, CEA Subramanian said that basic math and comprehension are “absolutely vital” for every child or youth.

Skill development secretary Krishnan admitted that the quality of employability in skilled personnel is not up to the mark yet, and pressed for the need for quality enforcement in school education, in order to improve employability in the long run.

The number of children passing class VIII doubled from 11 million in 2004 to 22 million in 2014, writers of the report say citing data from district information system for education (DISE).

However, there is a huge difference between youth who have completed more than eight years of education and those who haven’t.

While 46% of the former can perform arithmetic division, only 29% of the latter can do it. Similarly, while 63% of the former can correctly read a small sentence, only 36% of the latter can do it.

Close to 120 million youth are in the 14-18 age group today, according to the report. The pilot survey covered more than 28,000 youngsters from 26 rural districts across 24 states.

Though there are regional variations in the findings, national averages do point to lacunae in the state of aspirational young Indians. While 74% of them have a bank account, about 51% have used an account for deposit or withdrawal, and only 15% have used an ATM, while less than 5% have used internet banking.

There are stark different inside the age group as well. Percentage of children/youth not enrolled in any institution

Districts in central Indian states which have low levels of literacy than their western and southern counterparts showed a lesser percentage of youth being able to count money or add weights. It also worthy to note that most indicators for north eastern states fall behind these indicators that represent basic scholastic ability.

The school education quality index, devised by NITI Aayog in 2016 has not been released yet.

Assessments of quality of education till now did not factor in the emergence of online means of education. A KPMG report on the same predicts that online primary and secondary supplemental education market in India will grow with a CAGR of 60% to $ 773 million in 2021 (from $ 73 million in 2016).

The report classified four broad heads of focus: Activity, ability, awareness and aspirations, representing, but not limited to, enrolment, arithmetic and reading ability, use of computers and ambition