The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 by NGO Pratham Foundation was released in New Delhi on January 28, 2024. The intensive survey report was released by the co-founders of Pratham Dr. Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay.
For the ASER 2024 report, a total of 649, 491 children in 17, 997 villages across 605 rural villages in India were surveyed. The survey was conducted for children from 3 age groups: Pre-Primary (age group 3-5), Elementary (age group 6-14) and Older children (age group 15-16).
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Report findings:
For the age group 3-5, the report highlights that the enrollment of children in preschool is high and rising. In 2024, more than 80% of children in this age group are enrolled in some form of pre-primary institution.
The report also mentions that the proportion of ‘underage’ students i.e. age 5 or below, entering standard I is decreasing over time. On comparing the previous years' figures, it can be seen that the figure was 25.6% in 2018, 22.7% in 2022, and for 2024, the national percentage of underage students entering standard I in 16.7%, which is the lowest figure ever.
For the age group 6-14, the survey finds that the proportion of the number of children in this age group who are enrolled in school has exceeded 95% for close to 20 years. In 2024 it stands at 98.1%. For the enrollment in government schools, the figure stands at 66.8%, which is close to the pre-pandemic levels. However, during the pandemic government school enrollments had seen a spike with 72.9% enrollments recorded in 2022.
Concerning the older children belonging to the age group 15-16 years, the survey has mentioned that the proportion of older children not enrolled in school has been decreasing steadily over the years. The proportion of 15-16 year old children who are not enrolled in school stands at 7.9% in 2024. There was a decline from 13.1% in 2018 to 7.5% in 2022 as per the earlier figures.