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IN a news environment dominated by heated discussions on the continuing stand-off with Pakistan over investigating and charging those accused of masterminding the recent terror strikes in Mumbai and the implications of the massive Satyam Computers fraud, it is hardly surprising that the state of education in our rural schools, as captured in the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2008 has gone virtually unnoticed. Evidently, changes, if any, in the learning abilities of our children, particularly those belonging to the poorer strata and studying in indifferently endowed schools, both public and private, are of little interest to our otherwise vocal middle classes.

Equally, the political class seems unconcerned about the outcomes of the huge investments that have flown into the elementary education sector in the last two decades. Ever since the National Policy on Education 1986, and more so since the early nineties, it is widely accepted that even the poorest in India want education for their children, seen as the most crucial route to upward mobility and improving life-chances. Towards this end, we have seen not only a massive escalation in funding but a proliferation of schemes and programmes designed to address every conceivable gap in schooling – be it provision of additional schools, improvements in textbooks and supplementary learning materials, mid-day meals, recruitment of teachers and their training, and the list goes on. At least on paper, we also have special schemes for those seen as low participants – girls, scheduled castes and tribes, and now, post the Sachar Committee recommendations, the religious minorities.

And yet, while it is undeniable that all this concerted effort has resulted in dramatic improvements in enrolment, retention, decline in dropouts and so on, there is an intriguing lack of attention to outcomes, in particular whether our children are learning better. That is why it is so crucial to pay greater attention to efforts like ASER, not only because it represents a rare effort to provide nation-wide data based on an elaborately drawn sample to assess learning levels in primary schools – reading, writing, arithmetic skills – but equally because this in a non-government effort by a consortium of organizations headed by Pratham, an educational NGO. ASER reiterates the societal concern about the learning levels of our children.

Over the four years of the ASER effort we have learnt that we are fast approaching universal enrolment, and that both the dropout figures and those of out-of-school children have been coming down. Also that among the 6-14 year olds, the proportion of children attending private schools has increased from 16.4% in 2005 to 22.5% in 2008. More surprisingly, this proportion goes up to nearly half in states like Kerala and Goa, normally seen as better performers. What, however, remains disturbing is that despite fairly relaxed standards of testing for both reading ability and arithmetic (testing class V children with class II texts), well over a quarter still fail. In large parts of the country, nearly half of the children cannot tell time or read maps. One wonders what this does to the idea of a school time-table.

Expectedly, there is a wide variation in performance across the country, including in the changes that have taken place over the last four years. States like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Bihar have shown significant improvements but others like Tamil Nadu, conventionally considered high performing, show disappointing results. The paradox is that Tamil Nadu ranks high on all supply indicators – number of schools, teacher-pupil ratio, budgetary provisions and so on. So why the relatively poor outcomes?

Another major question thrown up by the ASER survey relates to the increased popularity of private schools, despite the fact that quite often their infrastructure compares unfavourably to public schools, their teacher-student ratios are no better, and they charge fees. This is true for both educationally advanced and laggard states. Since the data on the relative performance of students in government and private schools is inconclusive, the growing perception amongst parents that private equals better requires further probing.

All these become crucial concerns in the context of the proposed Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, currently before the Parliament. Already there is concern about specific provisions in the Bill, in particular those relating to the legal social obligations of private, unaided institutions as also about how the new law, once it comes into being, may result in an increased hold of the bureaucracy and add to systemic rigidities. One can only hope that the debate in Parliament will draw upon contemporary research and surveys like ASER before deciding on the final shape of the Bill. Our children’s right to a meaningful learning environment deserves no less.

Harsh Sethi