More than half of students between the ages of 14 and 18 struggle with division problems, and one in four are unable to read standard-II text fluently in their native tongue. Just 57.3% of people can read sentences in English, and 42.7% cannot read even simple sentences.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 2023, which was made public here on Wednesday, includes these important conclusions. For the first time, older children were surveyed in the report, which has continuously stated for more than 20 years that elementary school students require immediate assistance to improve their basic reading and math skills.

Particularly noteworthy is the exception of digital literacy, as 90% of the children surveyed said they owned a smartphone and knew how to use it.

34,745 youth (ages 14 to 18) from 28 districts in 26 states were evaluated on their fundamental skills as part of the ASER survey. With the exception of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, where two rural districts were selected for the survey, one rural district was chosen in each state.

In comparison to the national average of 56.7%, a higher percentage of students reported difficulty with division problems involving three numbers divided by one in JK (60.7%), Uttarakhand (63.1%), and Rajasthan (65.7%) in basic math.

There is still room for improvement as evidenced by the high percentage of students in Punjab (43.1%), Haryana (38.2%), and Himachal (39.5) who lack basic mathematical skills.

According to the survey, even though 86.8% of children between the ages of 14 and 18 are enrolled in school, the majority of them struggle with fundamental subjects like reading, math, and English.

The report says females (76%) do better than males (70.9 %) in reading standard-II text in their regional language. In contrast, males do better than females in English reading and arithmetic.