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Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011

Dr. Madhav Chavan, Sri Kapil Sibal and Mr. Ajay Piramal

New Delhi, 16 January 2012

The Annual Status of Education Report, ASER 2011 was released in New Delhi today by the Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri Kapil Sibal. This was followed by a panel discussion chaired by Minister of State for Human Resource development, Dr. D. Purandeswari. The panelists included Shri Hussain Dalwai- Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Dr. Madhav Chavan, President and CEO, Pratham Education Foundation and Dr Rukmini Banerji, Director ASER Centre.

Completing its 7th year, ASER is the largest annual survey of children in rural India. Facilitated by Pratham, ASER is undertaken by local organizations and concerned citizens.

ASER 2011 reached 558 districts, 16,017 villages, 327,372 households and 633,465 children. Every year, ASER finds out whether children in rural India go to school, whether they can read simple text and whether they can do basic arithmetic. Eighteen months after the Right to Education Act came into effect, ASER 2011 also included a visit to more than 14,000 government schools to assess progress towards compliance with those norms and standards specified in the Right to Education Act that are easy to measure.

Press Release and Key Findings	ASER Press Articles	Enrollment and Learning Report Card 2011	Right to  Education Report Card

2011 Key Findings

ASER
1. Very high enrollment figures for rural India
2. Private school enrollment is rising in most states
3. Basic reading levels showing decline in many states
4. Arithmetic levels also show a decline across most states

School Visits
1. Children’s attendance has declined
2. More than half of all Std 2 and Std 4 classes sit together with another class
3. Schools get their grants, but not on time

Tracking RTE Indicators
1. Not much change in compliance on Pupil-teacher ratio and Classroom-teacher ratio
2. No major changes in buildings, playgrounds, boundary walls or drinking water
3. Better provision of girls’ toilets
4. More libraries in schools, and more children using them

Download the 2011 Key Findings Full Report