Covid-19 pandemic causes 'learning loss' in Chhattisgarh school kids: ASER report
India Today
The ASER report found out that the Covid-19 pandemic brought 'learning loss' for students of Chhattisgarh.
The Annual Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 for Chhattisgarh has found that the percentage of students unable to recognise even alphabet letters in beginner-level classes has doubled in 2021 as compared to 2018.
The ASER 2021 for Chhattisgarh further found out that the basic learning outcomes of the state had been improving in the pre-Covid-19 period as the Covid-19 pandemic hit the country in March 2020, leading to school closures; it caused a serious 'learning loss'.
The ASER 2021 report went on to add that foundational reading and arithmetic levels in children, especially for primary students, dropped substantially between 2018 and 2021.
For the report, a survey was conducted on 45,992 between the ages of 3-16 years, belonging to 33,432 households in a total of 28 districts across the state.
The report read, "The proportion of children at beginner-level (unable to recognise even letters of Hindi and English alphabets) in classes II, III and VI has roughly doubled in 2021 from 2018. It increased from 19.5 per cent to 37.6 per cent for children in class II, from 10.4 percent to 22.5 per cent in class III, and from 2.5 percent to 4.8 percent in class VI."
It marks the lowest foundational reading level for students of Classes 1-7 as compared to anytime in the past decade, according to the report.
"At the district level, the proportion of children in class I-II in government schools whocannot read even letters is above 70 percent in Bastar and Bijapur. In Dantewada (South Bastar) and Bijapur, the proportion of children in class III-V in government schools who could read a class II level text is below 10 percent," stated the report further.
