Annual Status of Education Report (ASER-2017) released on Tuesday covering 28 districts of 24 States on ‘Beyond Basics’- A survey of rural India youths, presented a gloomy picture of Jharkhand on a few basic parameters in comparison with the districts of Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.
The survey based on 4 As (Activity, Ability, Awareness, Aspirations) covering the age group 14-18 years, Jharkhand lags behind in enrollment status, digital use, financial participation, financial calculation etc in comparison to other adjoining States.
Notably, ASER has selected one district each from the selected States for the nationwide survey. From Jharkhand, East Singbhum district was considered for the survey while Muzaffarpur district in Bihar, Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh, Khordha district in Odisha and South 24 Paraganas in West Bengal was taken up for the survey.
The district-wise data collected by ASER under ‘Activity and Awareness’ category suggests that the enrollment status of youths here in Jharkhand is perturbing. As per the report, 73.3 per cent students here in East Singhbhum are enrolled in class 12 or beyond while Muzaffarpur, Bihar registers 87.5 per cent enrollment rate. Similarly, Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh boosts 79.7 per cent enrollment rate. Strongly portraying its status, South 24 Parganas in West Bengal and Odisha’s Khordha registers 83. 6 per cent and 73.9 per cent enrollment rate respectively.
While all the adjoining States in ‘Not enrolled’ category in the scale falls somewhere between 10. 3 per cent to 18 per cent, in Jharkhand 21.0 per cent youths are not enrolled in any course. However, the total percentage of youths taking vocational training or other courses in Jharkhand is quite encouraging in comparison to all the bordering States leaving out West Bengal.
Under financial participation category, Jharkhand has 83.6 per cent youths in East Singhbhum are having their bank accounts. Here too, the State is just above Bihar (80.3 per cent), rest all the bordering States are doing better than Jharkhand as Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal districts boosts 94.9 per cent, 88.4 per cent and 88.4 percent success rate respectively of their youths having bank account.
Also, as per the figures, only 9.2 per cent youths of East Singhbum in Jharkhand have used an ATM while in Bihar 17.0 per cent youths have used an ATM. Similarly, in Chhattisgarh 11.3 per cent, Odisha 19.4 per cent and West Bengal 9.6 per cent youths have used an ATM. Furthermore, in the category, youths who have used Internet banking, Jharkhand lags behind in comparison to all the bordering States with just 2.2 per cent youths having the knowledge of internet banking.
Under the criteria of ‘Ability’ that covers total percentage of youths who could read Standard-II level text, the basic ASER assessment report suggests that 67.2 per cent youths of Jharkhand can read class II level text which is significantly low in comparison to Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal. In Bihar 77.8 per cent, Chhattisgarh 85.4 per cent, Odisha 85.5 and West Bengal 71.7 per cent youths can read class II text.