Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2022

The overall enrolment of children aged 6-14 years increased from 97.2 per cent in 2018 to 98.4 per cent in 2022.

Four out of every 10 children between three and six years of age were enrolled in Anganwadi Centres in 2022. While it varies across states, the enrolment has gone up in all states. As opposed to the 57.1 per cent in 2018, 66.8 per cent of 3-year-olds were enrolled in Anganwadi Centres in 2022. The percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in anganwadis increased from 50.5 per cent in 2018 to 61.2 per cent in 2022.

As was the case before 2022, providing a high-quality pre-school education continues to be a challenge. A single anganwadi worker is tasked with providing six distinct services to mothers and young children.

The proportion of children in the 6-14 age group who are not enrolled in schools has halved from 2.8 per cent in 2018 to 1.6 per cent in 2022.

In 2018, 30.9 per cent of children attended private schools. By 2022, this has decreased to 25.1 per cent. This 5.8 percentage point decline translates into an abrupt 19 percent decline in private school enrolment and an increase of 11 per cent in enrolment at rural government schools.

In 2006, the number of girls aged 11 to 14 years who were not enrolled in school, nationwide, was 10.3 per cent; over the next 10 years, this number decreased to 4.1 per cent in 2018. This percentage has further decreased over time. The percentage of girls aged 11 to 14 who are not enrolled in school nationwide in 2022 is two per cent. Only in Uttar Pradesh does this number hover around four per cent.

Percentage of girls between the ages of 15 and 16 years who are not enrolled in school stands at 7.9 per cent in 2022. Only three states have more than 10 per cent of girls in this age range who are not enrolled in school – Madhya Pradesh (17 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (15 per cent), and Chhattisgarh (11.2 per cent).

The percent of children in Class I to VIII who take private tuition increased from 26.4 per cent in 2018 to 30.5 per cent in 2022 at the national level.

Children's basic reading skills nationwide have fallen back to pre-2012 levels, undoing the gradual advancement made in the previous years. In the majority of states, reductions in reading skills can be seen in both public and private schools, and for both boys and girls.

According to ASER 2022 data, reading suffers a far bigger loss than arithmetic does. For most grades nationwide, children's fundamental maths proficiency levels have dropped from the 2018 levels but compared to basic reading, the decreases are less abrupt, the report states.

At an all-India level, average teacher attendance increased from 85.4 per cent in 2018 to 87.1 per cent in 2022. Average student attendance has continued to be steady at 72 per cent for the past few years.

The percentage of schools that had functional girls' toilets rose from 66.4 per cent in 2018 to 68.4 per cent in 2022. Over the same time period, the percentage of schools with access to drinking water went from 74.8 per cent to 76 per cent, and the percentage of schools where students use books beyond textbooks increased from 36.9 per cent to 44 per cent.

Focus and Factoids by Naitri Derasari.