ASER 2022: In UP, Bihar and Jharkhand rising number of students taking private tuitions

The proportion of students taking private tuition classes after school has increased by more than four percentage points over the pre-COVID-19 levels across the country, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 launched on Wednesday.

The increase in certain states, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand, is up to eight percentage points.

The crucial report has pointed out that over the last decade, rural India has seen small but steady increases in the proportion of children in Classes 1 to 8 taking paid private tuition classes.

ASER is a nationwide, citizen-led household survey that provides a snapshot of children’s schooling and learning in rural India.

The first ASER was conducted in 2005 and repeated annually for 10 years. ASER 2022 is the first field-based "basic" nationwide ASER after a gap of four years. It comes at a time when children are back in school after an extended period of school closure.

The report has pointed out that the all-India level incidence of tuition went up from about 25 per cent in 2018 to 30 per cent in 2022, but there is a lot of variation across the states.