Adapting to the changes that have swept through school education over the last few months owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 15th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020 Wave 1 was released, based on a phone-based survey which was carried out in September.
A higher number of students from government schools had access to textbooks in Tamil Nadu, According to the survey, nearly 93.7% of the students from government schools in the State had access to textbooks whereas only 68.1% of private school students had them. Of all the children surveyed, 64.6% of them were found to have access to digital learning through smartphones.
In 31 districts, a sample of 6,472 households from 923 villages had been identified and 2,134 students aged between 5-16 years were spoken to. The study aimed to look at various aspects of school education and its impact under COVID-19. This included school enrollment patterns, household resources available, home support available for learning and access to learning material.
Around 31.3% of students from government schools, however, indicated that they weren’t able to receive learning material since they had no smart phones, in comparison to the 19.3% of private school students who cited lack of smartphones as a reason for not being able to access material.
Despite numerous platforms for online classes, WhatsApp was used predominantly to send learning resources and material to both private and government school students in Tamil Nadu. Findings indicated that 73.2% of government school students received learning material via Whatsapp in comparison to 90% of private school students. 14.1% government students received their learning materials through a personal visit from their teachers as opposed to just 1.5% of students from private schools - an indication of the veetupalli scheme in the State where teachers from government schools have been visiting students as well as have started to set up micro classrooms.
