The Children decide the future of the country but according to a recent survey the decline in basic reading and arithmetic skills of young children, said the latest edition of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released on Wednesday.

The report released data highlights data which showcases the decline in the learning outcome.

Although the enrolment of students in government schools have increased,11 there has been a decline in their basic skills.

The drop is visible in both government and private schools in most schools for both boys and girls.

The annual education status report for rural India showed that 43.9% of Class children cannot read a letter, while only 12% children read a complete word. Similarly, 37.6% of the children in Class I cannot read numbers 1 to 9. States showing a decline of more than 10 percentage points from 2018 levels include those that had higher reading levels in 2018, such as Kerala (from 52.1% in 2018 to 38.7% in 2022), Himachal Prades (from 47.7% to 28.4%) and Haryana (from 46.4% to 31.5%).

The report revealed that the percentage of children in Class III in government or private schools who can read at Class II-level dropped from 27.3% in 2018 to 20.5% in 2022. Large drops are also visible in Andhra Pradesh (from 22.6% to 10.3%) and Telangana (from 18.1% to 5.2%).