Last Updated on November 18, 2021 at 1:58 am
The proportion of children not currently enrolled in schools in Jammu and Kashmir has increased from 2.4% in 2020 to 6.0% in 2021, report by Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 has suggested.
The survey was conducted in 14 districts, 4685 households and 295 government schools and its findings were released on Wednesday.
The report can raise many eyebrows as the government has been claiming of improved educational facilities across the Union Territory after 2019 when the special status of J&K was abrogated.
The ASER report further states that the children taking tuition in J&K has also increased to 29 percent from only 10 percent in 2018.
ASER 2021 followed the format of a phone-based survey. Conducted in September-October 2021, eighteen months after the first lockdown, the survey explores how children in the age group of 5-16 studied at home since the onset of the pandemic and the challenges that the schools and households now face as schools reopen across states.
ASER 2021 was conducted in 25 states and 3 Union Territories. It reached a total of 76,706households and 75,234 children in the age group of 5-16 years, as well as teachers or head teachers from 7,299 government schools offering primary grades.
At an all-India level, there has been a clear shift from private to government schools. For children in the age group of 6-14, enrollment in private schools has decreased from 32.5% in 2018 to 24.4% in 2021. This shift is seen in all grades and among both boys and girls. However, boys are still more likely to be enrolled in private schools than girls.
In J&K the availability of smartphones has increased from 50.9% in 2018 to 72.8% in 2021 while more than 95% enrolled children have textbooks for their current grade.
