Kohima, August 25 (MExN): The Annual Status of Education (ASER), the autonomous research and assessment unit of Pratham will be launching ASER effort for 2019 entitled ‘Early Years’.
Every year since 2005, ASER has reported on the schooling status and the ability to do basic reading and arithmetic tasks for children in the 5-16 age group in rural India.
After ten years of producing an annual report, in 2016, ASER switched to an alternate-year cycle where this “basic” ASER is conducted every other year (2016, 2018, and next in 2020); and in alternate years ASER focuses on a different aspect of children's schooling and learning. In 2017, ASER 'Beyond Basics' focused on the abilities, awareness, and aspirations of youth in the age group of 14-18.
In 2019, ASER aims to shine the spotlight on the early years, reporting on the schooling status as well as on a range of important developmental indicators for young children in the age group 4-8.
According to a release received here, the 'Early Years' ASER will collect data on the schooling or pre-schooling status of children in the age group 4-8 and will, in addition, explore selected competencies that international research has identified as important predictors of future success, both in school and in life.
These competencies can be categorized in four domains: early language acquisition, early numeracy skills, cognitive abilities, and social and emotional learning.
ASER 2019 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.
Because this is a new target group, the survey will be conducted in one rural district per state rather than nationwide.
The ASER 2019‘Early Years’ effort will begin on August 30 with a preparatory national workshop in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, the release stated.
Close to 120ASER and Pratham team members who lead the survey in their respective states will attend the workshop to understand and practice the tools and processes to be used. As always, this residential training has classroom sessions plus two days of field practice. The national workshop will be followed by training workshops for district partner organizations.
Like each year, the national release of the ASER report will be in mid January, 2020 in New Delhi.
For more information about ASER 2019‘Early Years’, and its progress, visit http://www.asercentre.org/Keywords/p/357.html.
For more information, one may contact: Kuyuchu Pfithu, ASER Associate, Email: kuyuchu@asercentre.org. Mobile no: 9862333159.
