Extending ASER as an assessment tool throughout South Asia

Abstract

Since 2006, Pratham, an Indian NGO, has conducted large-scale biannual surveys in all Indian states, in basic reading and arithmetic – surveys known by the acronym "ASER" (Annual Status of Education Report, Rural). The article endorses large-scale international assessments (such as PISA and ASER) as necessary tools for evaluating school systems at national level in the case of centralized systems and, in countries with decentralized systems, for evaluating sub-national systems. In India, both the central government in Delhi and state-level governments exercise substantial education jurisdiction. Delhi's 2010–12 decisions to incentivize enrolment without reference to quality disproportionately impacted above-median states. Delhi's decision to close all schools for nearly two years during pandemic (2020–22) again disproportionately impacted outcomes in above-median states. Similar impacts arose for arithmetic. By the 2018 survey (pre-COVID), ranking states by grade 5 ability to read at a basic level, nearly three-fifths of students in top-quintile states could read; in bottom-quintile states, at best one third students could read. In 2022 (post-COVID), the national average of rural students able to achieve ASER basic reading and do arithmetic are below ASER 2010 results.