ASER 2013, NE India released
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, February 19 2014: The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2013, North East India was released today at Manipur Press Club here.

Prof N Mohendro Singh, former Member of Steering Committee, NER Vision 2020; Ashok, Member of ASER Centre, Delhi and Soibam Nepola, Research Associate, ASER Centre, Delhi attended the function as Presidium Members.

The ASER survey facilitated by Pratham, is conducted by local organization and institutions in each rural district.

The ASER 2013 reached 550 districts and close to 16,000 villages, 3.3 lakh households and 6 lakh children in the age-group 3-16 .

According to the report, in Manipur, ASER 2013 visited 242 villages in 9 districts and total of 10015 children of age group 3-16 were surveyed.

In 2005, 2007, and every year since 2009, ASER had included a visit to one government school in each sampled village. The report also presented that enrolment of children in the age group of 6-14 continued to be very high, with more than 96% of children enrolled in schools in all India average against 98.5% in Manipur.

Moreover, the proportion of out of school girls in the 11 to 14 age group has declined since last year.

Regarding the enrolment of children in private schools in the state, the figure has increased to 70.5% in 2013 from 67.2% in the previous year, 2012 .

Even though certain improvements have been seen on a nationwide average regarding the children's ability to recognize and read texts, they still counter difficulties while tackling basic arithmetic.

In Manipur, however, 47.7% of standard III students in government schools were able to work out basic subtraction or more, as compared to 54.7% in private schools.

On the other hand, the teacher attendance in primary schools has declined steadily while the students' attendance increases slightly.

In the context of the state, the proportion of schools that comply with RTE pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) norms have increased from 74.3% in 2010 to 91.0% in 2013.But on the other hand, classroom-teacher ratio (CTR) has steadily decreased from 62.5% in 2010 to 34.4% in 2013 .

ASER has also reported that percentage of schools with no drinking water facilities in the state has declined from 84.6% in 2010 to 79.9% in 2013 which is much higher than the all India average.

Likewise, proportion of schools with useable toilet is very low, as only 47.9% of schools visited have proper toilets with the figure for schools with no separate toilets for girls reported up to 65.4%.Strikingly, in Manipur, 89.4% schools visited had no library at all.

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