Itanagar: The school enrollment rate for the 6 to 14 age group in Arunachal Pradesh has been above 96% for the past 15 years according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2022, released on Wednesday.
Despite school closures during the pandemic, overall enrollment figures have increased from 96.1% in 2018 to 96.9% in 2022.
Similarly, the enrollment of children in the age group of 6-14 enrolled in government schools stands at 62.2% in 2022 as compared to 60.1% in 2018.
ASER is a nationwide, citizen-led household survey that provides a snapshot of children’s schooling and learning in rural India.
ASER 2022 is the first field-based “basic” nationwide ASER after a gap of four years. The survey is valuable as it comes at a time when children are back in schools after an extended gap due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Below are the other details of the survey for the state of Arunachal.
Proportion of girls who are not currently enrolled: In 2006, 8.7% of the girls in the age group of 11-14 were not enrolled in school in Arunachal Pradesh. The survey saw this figure reduce steadily over the years. In 2022, this figure for 11-14- year-old girls not enrolled in school stands at 3%.
In 2008, more than 10% of the girls in the 15-16 age groups were not enrolled in school in Arunachal Pradesh. This reduced to 8.6% in 2018 and has reduced further to 6.4% in 2022.
Enrollment in the pre-primary age group: In Arunachal Pradesh, the proportion of 3-year-olds enrolled in some form of early childhood education stands at 64.4% in 2022, an increase of 4.2 percentage points over 2018 levels. There is a substantial shift in enrollment patterns of young children in the age group 3-5 years. In 2022, 42.7% of 3-year-olds were enrolled in Anganwadi Centres as compared to 35.2% in 2018. Among 4-year-olds, Anganwadi enrollment has increased from 25.7% (2018) to 29.8% (2022).
Paid private tuition classes: The proportion of children in Standards I-VIII taking paid private tuition classes in the state increased from 23.1% in 2018 to 26.6% in 2022. The survey also saw a higher percentage of children from private school take tuitions (42.7%) as compared to children in govt schools (18.5%).
Learning levels (reading skills): Nationally, the children’s basic reading ability has dropped to pre-2012 levels, reversing the slow improvement achieved in the intervening years. Drops are visible in both government and private schools in most states, and for both boys and girls. In Arunachal too, the percentage of children in Standard III in government or private schools who can read at Standard II level dropped from 18.7% in 2018 to 10.8% in 2022.
However, the proportion of children enrolled in Standard V in government or private schools of Arunachal who can at least read a Standard II level text improved marginally from 37.0% in 2018 to 37.8% in 2022. Meanwhile, 73.3% of children enrolled in Standard VIII in government or private schools could read at least basic text in 2022 as compared to 70.1% in 2018.
Learning levels (Arithmetic): In Arunachal, 33.5% of the children in Standard III (this includes children in both govt and private schools) were able to at least do subtraction in 2018. This figure has gone up to 35.8% in 2022. However, the proportion of children in Standard V who can do division in government or private schools has reduced from 27.1 in 2018 to 22.9% in 2022.
The proportion of children in Standard VIII from both govt and private schools who can do division has decreased from 49.3% in 2018 to 45.9% in 2022.
Learning levels (English): The children’s ability to read simple English sentences in Arunachal has increased from 33.2% in 2016 to 47.8%. In 2022, a slight improvement is visible for children in Standard VIII (from 75.9% in 2016 to 76.0% in 2022).
School observations: The proportion of government schools with less than 60 students enrolled has increased every year over the last decade. Nationally, this figure was 17.3% in 2010, 24% in 2014, 29.4% in 2018, and stands at 29.9% in 2022.
For Arunachal Pradesh, this figure was 7.1% in 2010, 15.2% in 2014, 35.5% in 2018, and increased to 40.9% in 2022 in upper primary school.
Average teacher attendance in the state also increased slightly, from 72.7% in 2018 to 75.4% in 2022. However, average student attendance decreased from 78.3% in 2018 to 75.9% in 2022 in upper primary schools.
School facilities: In Arunachal Pradesh, usable girls’ toilets increased from 28.2% in 2018 to 43.6% in 2022. The proportion of schools with drinking water available increased from 44.7% to 62.0%, and the proportion of schools with books other than textbooks being used by students increased from 4.4% to 5.9% over the same period.
Also 78.2% of the upper primary schools in the state had playgrounds in 2022 as compared to 55.5% in 2018.
Other school indicators: Most children across the nation had received their textbooks for the current academic year. Textbooks had been distributed to all grades in 90.1% of primary schools and in 84.4% of upper primary schools.
Similarly in Arunachal, textbooks had been distributed to all grades in 87.6% of primary schools and in 89.9% of upper primary schools.
Also about 39% of all primary schools in the state had received a directive to implement Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) activities with their students, and about 61% proportion had at least 1 teacher who had received training on FLN.
ASER 2022 reached 616 districts and a total of 19,060 villages in rural India.
In Arunachal Pradesh, the ASER team reached 13 districts and a total of 376 villages. As many as 5,320 households and 9148 children in the age group 3 to 16 were also surveyed.
Also read: Arunachal making rapid strides in education sector: CM Khandu
