State of School Education – Part I – Evaluation mechanisms and results

1.0 Introduction

Education over the years has been a focus area for the government and non-governmental agencies. This has led to numerous innovations and interventions across government and non-governmental institutions working towards the mandate of quality education. An essential part of the challenge has been an analysis of the ongoing situation. Different mechanisms have been built to understand the current state of education. In this writing we intend to understand government and non-governmental efforts to evaluate learning among children across India.

2.0 Ongoing efforts

Annual Survey of Education Report [ASER] is a specialised, independent unit of the Pratham network. The survey has been working on producing evidence for action in education for a decade now. The ASER provides estimates for children’s schooling and learning levels across India. The learning levels are estimated by conducting independent assessments of school children across reading and arithmetic.

National Achievement Survey (NAS) is a nationally representative large-scale survey of students’ learning undertaken by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. NAS gives a system level reflection on effectiveness of school education. Findings help compare the performance across spectrum and across population in order to find the desirable direction for improvements [NAS. 2021]. Going beyond the scorecard generated as a result of the survey it aims to incorporate background variables. This enables in developing a correlation as per student performance on learning outcomes as a determinant vis-a-vis contextual variables as per the children.

PGI 2.0 aims to propel governments of State/ Centre/ Union Territories towards undertaking multi-pronged interventions to achieve optimal education outcomes in terms of improving quality. It also is to motivate them to adopt best practices followed by the top performers which can be adapted/replicated wherever possible in a short time span [PGI. 2021-22]. The PGI is constructed based on 73 indicators from 2 categories containing 6 domains. The different domains are – Learning outcomes, Equity, Access, Infrastructure and facilities, Governance processes, Teachers training, Digital learning.

3.0 Current data

3.1 ASER

The latest data by ASER with a comparative in the pre and post COVID scenario.

3.2 NAS

The National Achievement Survey 2021 provides the following statistics for education in schools.

3.3 PGI

Source – PGI. 2021-22

Source – PGI. 2021-22

4.0 Interpretations

The latest data by ASER with a comparative in the pre and post COVID scenario.

Reading gaps:

• The percentage of children in Std III in government or private schools who can read at Std II level dropped from 27.3% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2022.
• Nationally, the proportion of children enrolled in Std V in government or private schools who can at least read a Std II level text fell from 50.5% in 2018 to 42.8% in 2022.
• Although drops in basic reading ability are visible among Std VIII students as well, these are smaller as compared to observed trends in Std III and Std V. Nationally, 69.6% of children enrolled in Std VIII in government or private schools can read at least basic text in 2022, falling from 73% in 2018.

Arithmetic :

• The All India figure for children in Std III who are able to at least do subtraction dropped from 28.2% in 2018 to 25.9% in 2022.
• The proportion of children in Std V across India who can do division has also fallen slightly, from 27.9% in 2018 to 25.6% in 2022.
• The performance of Std VIII in basic arithmetic is more varied. Nationally, the proportion of children who can do division has increased slightly, from 44.1% in 2018 to 44.7% in 2022.

The NAS done by the education department in collaboration with the State education departments of States/UTs is done across government schools. Some insights from the data shared –

• As per the data, there is a fall in the students who are able to standard level Mathematics from 57% in Class III to 44% in Class V to 33% in Class VIII.
• Similarly the % of students who can do standard level Language falls from 72% in Class III to 55% in Class V to 53% in Class VIII.

The PGI index on the other hand clearly highlights that out of the 36 states surveyed 28 fall in the bottom 3 categories with a score range from 401-520 out of a total of 1000. Only 2 states have managed to fall in the top percentile on the index spectrum.

As different agencies across the country look at the state of education for children across India it is essential to understand how each effort is contributing to the larger aim of better learning for each child. Monitoring and evaluation provides a crucial link between the decision makers associated with a Project and the implementation teams and beneficiaries. This has been gaining ground over the years with a focus on – relevant impact, long term goals and budgetary efficacy of projects.

References

• Annual Survey of Education Report [Research Projects – ASER: Annual Status of Education Report (asercentre.org)]
• ASER 2022 [ASER 2022 – ASER: Annual Status of Education Report (asercentre.org)]
• National Achievement Survey. 2021. [National Achievement Survey (education.gov.in)]
• Performance Grading Index [gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/statistics-new/pgi-s.pdf]
• Ministry of Education. Government of India. (2021) National Achievement Survey [NAS].
• Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education. Government of India. (2022) Performance Grading Index [PGI].

Annexure

Performance Grading Index 2.0 summary of category, domain and indicators-