New Delhi: The Annual Status of Education Report 2014 reveals that the standard of school education was not up to the mark in rural India and claimed over half the children in these areas were behind in reading and arithmetic abilities.

The report, prepared by Pratham, claimed that only 25 per cent of children enrolled in Class 5 could read simple English sentences and only around 26 per cent of Class 3 students could do a two-digit subtraction.

The ASER Report, widely followed by policymakers and educationists, covered over 15,000 government schools across rural India, of which 8,844 were primary schools and 6,362 were upper primary schools.

The report pointed to a lack of flexibility in the system to help children catch up with others. The report said the percentage of children in Class 2 who still cannot recognise numbers up to nine had increased from 11.3 per cent in 2009 to 19.5 per cent in 2014.

Similarly, the ability to do division among Class 8 students has been dropping since 2010. The proportion of Class 8 students who could correctly do a three digit by one digit division problem was 68.3 per cent in 2010, and this number has dropped to 44.1 per cent in 2014.

Only Tamil Nadu showed some improvement in learning outcome in maths. On English, the report said children’s ability to read the language is relatively unchanged in lower primary grades. In 2014, 25 per cent of children enrolled in Class 5 could read simple English sentences, and this number has remained virtually unchanged since 2009.

However, on a positive note, the report claimed that enrolment levels had increased over the years and has reached 96 per cent or higher in the 6-14 age group. “India is close to universal enrolment for the age group of 6-14 years, with the percentage of children enrolled in the schools at 96 per cent or above for six years in a row,” it said.

It also highlighted the increased inclination towards private schools in rural India, with the figure standing at 30.8 per cent enrolment of the 6-14 age group. This number is slightly up from 29 per cent in 2013.