The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for rural India completes the picture that had been painted piecemeal through anecdotal reportage — the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country’s education system has been severely detrimental. The survey — conducted over the telephone and covering 76,706 households in 17,184 villages — shows that the percentage of children enrolled in government schools rose from 64.3% in 2018 to 65.8% in 2020, dramatically going up to 70.3% in 2021. Conversely, the enrolment rate in private schools declined from 28.8% in 2020 to 24.4% in the current year. This confirms that households have been severely affected by the economic depression caused by the pandemic, reducing funds earmarked for children’s education. The survey also confirms that a large number of migrant workers’ families have moved back to villages.

Enrolment in government schools had been steadily declining since 2006, settling below 65% in 2018, as parents believed that private schools offer better education and facilities to their children. The pandemic has reversed the trend. Simultaneously, there has been 40 per cent rise in the number of school-going children taking private tuitions while their schools were closed during the pandemic. Taken in conjunction, this suggests that while economic distress has caused parents to opt for government schools, they have also been burdened by the cost of private tuitions.

The most worrying aspect of the report is that the youngest students — those just entering the formal education stream — have been left most vulnerable: One-third of the children in Class I and Class II have never attended an in-person class. Even more alarming is the fact that these pupils have the least access to technology — one third of Class I and Class II students do not have a smartphone at home. This is likely to widen the gap between the haves and have-nots in the education system, in which access to quality education — and, thus, access to opportunities for economic advancement — is dictated by a family’s economic and social position. The survey has shown that urgent steps must be taken to address this challenge because we cannot afford to further polarise access to education on economic lines.