ASER 2023 ‘Beyond basics’ to be conducted in Kohima district

DIMAPUR — The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 ‘Beyond basics’ will be conducted in Kohima district from September 18 to the 21st, in collaboration with the Department of Education and Department of Teachers’ Education, Nagaland University (NU), and Kohima Science College Autonomous, Jotsoma.

Fifty scholars from the Education department and Teachers’ Education department of NU will be trained in the university premises, to conduct the survey in 60 sampled villages of Kohima, ASER Nagaland stated in a press release.

“ASER 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ will focus on what India’s youth, aged 14 to 18, are currently doing, what they can do in terms of applied reading and math, and whether they are equipped with digital skills to support their future,” it stated.

The focus of ASER 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ is on three domains:

• Activity: What are young people doing currently? Are they enrolled in secondary school, college, or in a technical or vocational course? Are they working?

• Ability: Can they apply basic reading and arithmetic abilities to everyday situations? Can they do simple financial calculations?

• Acquisition: Do they know how to handle a digital device? Do they have basic digital skills? Can they use the device for various non-internet and internet-based activities?

By keeping the domains of activity and ability as close as possible to ASER 2017, ASER 2023 will provide comparable estimates, giving a glimpse of how these have changed for India’s youth over the six-year period, which was marked by 2 years of school and college closures due to COVID-19.

“ASER 2023 will retain core elements of the ASER architecture: it will be a sample-based household survey, conducted by local volunteers, using simple and easy-to-administer tools and formats. It will be conducted in one or two districts in each state of India between September and November 2023. As always, the report will be released in mid-January 2024. As with every ASER, the objective of ASER 2023 remains to generate reliable and easy-to-understand evidence at scale, so as to facilitate a public conversation on issues that concern the entire country,” it stated.

Earlier, the national workshop for ASER ‘Beyond Basics’ 2023 was conducted from August 18 to the 25th in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Around 100 ASER team members from 27 states and UTs across India joined the workshop.

The eight-day rigorous workshop comprised training and field sessions, to prepare the team to roll out the ASER 2023 survey from September onwards, the release stated.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is a nationwide household survey that captures the status of children’s enrollment and learning outcomes in rural India every year.