Opinion by Wilima Wadhwa
Opinion ASER report brings good news — classrooms have recovered post Covid
Report shows improvement in learning outcomes above pre-pandemic levels, signals initial success of NEP.
ASER 2024 shows that the recovery has been pronounced in government schools, with learning levels in private schools still below pre-pandemic levels (Source: Express Archives) 
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This year ASER went back to almost all rural districts of the country to report on children’s schooling status and basic reading and arithmetic levels. Data from ASER 2024 helps track the progress of foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills across the country.
The 2024 report has good news. It shows more than a full recovery from the post-pandemic learning losses. At the all-India level, the proportion of children in Class III who are able to read at the Class-II level, had risen slowly from 23.6 per cent in 2014 to 27.3 per cent in 2018 and then fell drastically to 20.5 per cent in 2022. Two years later, we have a full recovery with the proportion of Class III children reading fluently at 27.1 per cent. We see a similar picture in Class V, with the proportion of children who can read a Class II level text rising from 48 per cent in 2014 to 50.5 per cent in 2018, then falling to 42.8 per cent in 2022, and finally recovering to 48.8 per cent in 2024.
In arithmetic, the learning loss post-pandemic in 2022 was smaller in comparison to reading. The proportion of children in Class III able to do at least subtraction rose from 25.4 per cent in 2014 to 28.2 per cent in 2018 and then fell to 25.9 per cent in 2022. In 2024, this proportion stands at 33.7 per cent — the highest we have seen in the last decade. Similarly, the proportion of children in Class V able to do at least division stands at 30.7 per cent in 2024 — again, much higher than levels in the past many years.
What is remarkable is that this recovery is completely driven by government schools. In rural India, government schools have always lagged behind private schools in terms of learning levels. There is vast literature on the learning differential between government and private schools, highlighting the fact that simply comparing learning levels across the two is misleading because of the self-selection effect. Children who go to private schools come from more affluent homes and have more educated parents. Nevertheless, ASER 2024 shows that the recovery has been pronounced in government schools, with learning levels in private schools still below pre-pandemic levels.
In arithmetic, both government and private schools have seen large jumps in learning levels, with 2024 levels surpassing the levels attained in 2022. Here again, the gains in government schools have been far greater than those in private schools. For instance, between 2022 and 2024, the proportion of children able to do subtraction in Class III increased by 36.6 per cent in government schools — from 20.2 per cent to 27.6 per cent — as compared to 10.2 per cent in private schools.
What has led to this sudden improvement in learning levels? We have not seen improvements of this magnitude in the last 20 years since ASER has been presenting data on foundational reading and arithmetic. Everything seems to point towards the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its focus on foundational skills. While this is not the first time that programmes have been introduced to improve learning, what is different is that it is the first time that there has been a systemic national push to improve foundational learning outcomes.
Almost all states have shown improvements as compared to 2022. In fact, the low-performing states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have made a remarkable recovery.
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For instance, consider the case of Uttar Pradesh. In 2014, only 6 per cent of government school Class III children could read a Class II level text. There was steady improvement in the next four years — in 2018, 12.3 per cent of children in government schools could read a Class II level text. UP was one of the few states not to post a learning loss for Class III in 2022, with the proportion rising to 16.4 per cent. In 2024, the proportion of government school children in Class III who are able to read at Class II level is 27.9 per cent. This kind of improvement cannot be labelled just a recovery — it signals a serious focus on improving FLN abilities. This push has borne fruits in arithmetic and in Class V learning levels as well — learning levels in UP government schools have never been higher in the last 20 years.
While the case of UP is remarkable, there are many other success stories as well. High-performing states like Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra, where almost half the children in Class III in government schools could read at Class II level in 2018, saw a halving of this proportion in 2022, post the Covid pandemic. These states have also posted appreciable learning gains. What is clear is that for the first time, the country is coming together behind one mission of improving FLN among primary school children.
India is a diverse country with a lot of variation across states. For the first time, the NEP has set clear FLN goals for the entire country, and states are finding different pathways to achieve these goals. ASER 2024 data tell the story of these efforts — a story of more than just a recovery.
The writer is director, ASER Centre, Pratham Education Foundation
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