Punjab leads in providing study material during lockdown: Survey

Punjab has secured the top position across India in providing online learning material to students of government schools in rural areas during the Covid lockdown.

According to a survey, the state Education Department had successfully provided study material to around 87.1 per cent children of government schools when schools were shut for six months.

As per the Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER)-2020 (Rural), Punjab is followed by Himachal Pradesh wherein 85.4 per cent students of government schools got the study material.

The survey explored the provision of and access to remote education mechanisms and material in rural parts of the country.

WhatsApp had been, by far, the most popular mode of sending learning material to the students, revealed the survey. The survey also highlighted that there were two major reasons behind many students not receiving the study material: Lack of smartphones and some teachers not doing as much as they should have. However, the survey highlighted that 83.3 per cent of children enrolled in government schools had access to smartphones.

Annual Status of Education Report

It is a nationwide survey of rural education and learning outcomes in terms of reading and arithmetic skills that has been conducted by the NGO Pratham for the last 15 years.
It uses Census 2011 as the sampling frame and continues to be an important national source of information about children’s foundational skills across the country.
ASER 2018 surveyed children in the age group of 3 to 16 years and included almost all rural districts in India and generated estimates of foundational reading and arithmetic abilities of children in the age group 5 to 16 years.
ASER 2019 reported on the pre-schooling or schooling status of children in the age group 4 to 8 years in 26 rural districts, focused on the “early years” and laid emphasis on “developing problem-solving faculties and building a memory of children, and not content knowledge”.
ASER 2020 is the first ever phone-based ASER survey and it was conducted in September 2020, the sixth month of national school closures.