Survey : 25% of youth between the age of 14 and 18 unable to read Class II text written in their mother tongue

(Credits: Hindustan Times)

Pune – ‘Annual Status of Education Report’s (ASER) ‘Beyond Basics’ survey for the year 2023 reported that the tendency among students to choose the ‘Arts’ stream post class X is increasing in the rural areas. A serious issue has come to light that 25% of the youth between the age 14 and 18, cannot read a class II level text in their regional language fluently. Hence, it is a debatable issue whether the students chose ‘Arts’ by choice or due to lack of choice.

This report focussed on the youth between the age group of 14 to 18. In this survey, 55.7% of students have chosen Arts or Humanities, 31.7% have chosen Science and 9.4% have chosen the Commerce after class X.

From the students between the age group of 14 to 18, more than half struggled with division (3-digit by 1-digit) problems. Only 43% could answer correctly. The youth were questioned on the Arithmetic curriculum of class III and IV. A little over half (57.3%) could read sentences in English, but only 73.5% of them could tell their meaning. Across categories, girls (76%) did better than boys (70.9%) in reading a Class II level text in their regional language. In contrast, boys did better in Arithmetic and English.

Editorial Perspective

This condition is shameful for the education department !