Wednesday, 09 Oct, 2024
By: Damini Mehta
Image Source: Freepik
About 90 per cent of the households reported having a smartphone of which 95 per cent boys and 90 per cent girls could use one. The finding has breached the threshold on all other types of activities the students can perform.
In a world which is increasingly moving towards digital tools in all aspects of life, access to digital devices such as smartphones acts as the most basic need. Early access to devices and ability to use them changes the way one interacts with the surroundings. In this regard, Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 gives interesting insights on the access to smartphones for school going children in rural parts of the country. Of all the developments, two findings stand out, one boys across ages have better access to smartphones than girls, and two, 90 per cent of the households surveyed reported owning a smartphone.
The 2023 survey looked into 14 to 18 year old children in rural India, a departure from the earlier cohort ASER covers running from 6 to 14 year olds. The survey attempted to capture student’s ability to apply reading and math skills to everyday situations, access to digital technology, and whether they possess the skills to use it, apart from other things. It was carried out with 34,745 young respondents in 28 rural districts of 26 states.
Reinforcing the assumption that students in rural and low income households start earning or engaging in earning activities from an early age, the survey found out that around 30 per cent of respondents had already started working, in most cases for their parents. However, their aspirations lie separate from this as a considerable share said this is not what they wanted to do as a career choice when they grow up. The finding sheds light on the impact of earning and income necessity in rural households and how it affects access to education in school going children. Another interesting finding related to this development which stands counter to the belief is that the dropout rate in students of this age group did not record a slump in the last few years as was expected due to the COVID pandemic and subsequent impact on earnings and school closure.
The survey’s assessment of learning outcomes for students is a continuation of what has been found by previous surveys as well. When it comes to reading fluently in their regional language, as high as 25 per cent or one in four children in the surveyed age group still could not read a Std-II level text. This disability was more pronounced in boys (29 per cent) than in girls (24 per cent). However, when it came to arithmetic and English language reading, boys performed better than girls on both accounts. More than half of the surveyed students in the age group of 14 to 18 struggled with basic division, a skill ideally developed by Std-III or IV as only 43 per cent of the students were able to solve the given problems. 57 per cent of the surveyed cohort could read English sentences of which 27 per cent could not tell the meaning of what they read. The survey assesses respondents by the use of a basic set of activities they are asked to perform.
When it comes to the digital component, interestingly, about 90 per cent of the households reported having a smartphone of which 95 per cent boys and 90 per cent girls could use one. The finding has breached the threshold on all other types of activities the students can perform. While the gender gap between using a smartphone is not very pronounced, when it comes to ownership of the device, the findings across age groups definitely reflected the gender gap. 43.7 per cent of all boys surveyed had their own smartphone, whereas less than half or only 19.8 per cent of all girls surveyed said the same. The data refers to ownership of the device for those who reported knowing how to use one. This gap tended to increase with age. While 15.5 per cent of boys at the age of 14 had their own smartphone, barely half of that or 7 per cent of the girls did. The gap became more pronounced at the age of 15 and 16 with a 15.4 and 28 percentage point gap between boys and girls having their own smartphone. 65.4 per cent of 17 year old boys and less than half of that or 29.4 per cent of 17 year old girls had their own smartphone. For the oldest age group of 18 year olds, the gap between male and female ownership of smartphones was at 39.3 percentage points.
The digital aspect of the survey led to another interesting but expected finding. While the ability to use devices was high, the purpose of usage largely remained confined to the surface layer, mainly engaging with social media or entertainment. Of those who could use a smartphone, 66 per cent reported using it for education related activity during the reference week but close to 80 per cent reported using it for entertainment related activities such as watching a movie or listening to music.
Notably, the survey found that the ability to perform digital tasks clearly improved with education level and increased with basic reading proficiency, re-emphasizing the need for basic literacy skills in even daily tasks using digital tools. This might also strengthen the ground for the government’s Digital India focus and increased need to improve basic literacy skills for it. ASER reports are widely used for public policy formulation and will be a key indicator in a situation in which other surveys such as the decennial census are delayed.
