Almost 40 per cent of Indian kids are opting for private tuitions, reveal ASER report

There has been a rise in enrolment of kids in government schools between 2018 and 2021 but during this period, there has also been a remarkable increase in children taking private tuition, the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) has revealed.

The ASER is a citizen-led household survey led by NGO Pratham — that provides nationally representative estimates of children's schooling status and their foundational reading and arithmetic skills and the findings from its latest edition throw crucial insights on the COVID pandemic's impact on education. The survey was conducted in 25 states and three UTs covering 75,234 children in the 5-16 year age group.

The report released on Wednesday, based on findings from rural India, showed that the proportion of students studying in government schools increased from 64.3 per cent in 2018 to 70.3 per cent in 2021 and the rise was noticed across all grades. "Incidence of private schooling in India has been rising over time. From 2006 to 2014 there was a steady increase. After plateauing around 30 per cent for a few years, there has been a significant decline in the pandemic years," the report underlined. "For children in the age group of 6-14, enrollment in private schools has decreased from 32.5 per cent in 2018 to 24.4 per cent in 2021. This shift is seen in all grades and among both boys and girls," it added.

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According to the report, along with the increase in enrolment in government schools, there has also been a considerable rise in the number of children dependent on private tuitions and nearly 40 per cent of children in India are attending tuitions as per the report. In 2018, this figure was just about 30 per cent.

Importantly, the largest increase in the proportion of children taking tuition is seen among children from the most disadvantaged households. "Taking parental education as a proxy for economic status, between 2018 and 2021, the proportion of children with parents in the 'low' education category who are taking tuition increased by 12.6 percentage points, as opposed to a 7.2 percentage point increase among children with parents in the 'high' education category," noted the report.

It also highlighted that the highest number of school-going kids taking private tuitions are in West Bengal — 76.5 per cent — followed by Bihar, where 73.5 per cent of children were found to be taking private tuition. The report also shows that in 2020 and 2021, there has been an increase in the number of children not enrolled in schools, especially among boys. In other findings, it has come out that while in 2018, 1.4 per cent boys in the age group of 7-10 and 2.9 per cent in the age group of 11-14 were not in school; that proportion increased to 4.7 and 4.1 per cent respectively in 2020 and 2021. For girls, on the other hand, the proportion has remained almost the same in the higher age bracket, but there has been a significant jump in the younger age bracket.