India’s learning gap: Why report cards may not tell the whole story

A passing report card does not always mean a child has mastered basic reading and arithmetic. In our Sunday special edition of 'YOUR INDIA', Santosh Nair looks at ASER findings, foundational learning gaps and why parents may need to check what children can actually read and calculate.

A grandmother beams with pride as her grandson brings home his Class 5 report card, full of passing marks. She assumes, reasonably, that a child who has passed five years of school can read confidently and do basic sums. Across India, this assumption is wrong far more often than most families realise, and the gap has a name education researchers have been tracking for two decades: learning poverty.

The Annual Status of Education Report, known as ASER, is India’s largest household-level survey of what children in rural India can actually do, not merely what grade they are enrolled in. Its most recent findings are sobering in a very specific way. Roughly 70 per cent of Class 5 students cannot perform simple arithmetic calculations expected at their grade level. Among Class 3 students, 76.6 per cent cannot read a Class 2 level text fluently, a basic skill meant to be secured two years earlier. Two out of every three Class 3 children cannot do simple subtraction.

Read more: What does the RTE Act actually guarantee your child?

Why passing a class does not always mean mastering........

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