Himachal ranks No. 1 in reading levels of govt school students: ASER report

Shimla: Himachal Pradesh has shown remarkable progress in education, with students surpassing their peers across India in reading proficiency.

There has been a significant increase of over 10 percentage points in various educational areas between 2022 and 2024.

This marks a major improvement in the state's school performance.

According to the 2024 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), 46.6 percent of third-standard students in the state can easily read a second-grade Hindi textbook. This is significantly higher than the national average of just 23.4 percent. The state has also made notable strides in early childhood education, with pre-primary enrolment on the rise.

In 2024, 87.5 percent of three-year-olds, 93.1 percent of four-year-olds, and 85.4 percent of five-year-olds were enrolled in pre-primary classes.

This improvement is quite encouraging if compared to previous years.

In 2022, only 23 percent of third graders in Himachal were able to read a second-grade book. The state has shown significant recovery from a decline during the pandemic, with figures now more than doubling since then. The report notes that under the skilful mission, Himachal Pradesh has paid attention to providing quality education to children and also introduced periodic training of teachers from time to time.

There has also been a continuous increase in the enrolments in pre-primary classes in the state. In the year 2024, 87.5 percent of the age of three, 93.1 of four years and 85.4 children aged five years admitted to pre -primary classes.

After Himachal, the reading level of Kerala students is the best. Here it is while Odisha is at 37.7 percent followed by 37 percent in Maharashtra, 35.6 percent in Uttarakhand, 34 percent of West Bengal, 27.9 percent of Uttar Pradesh, 24.7 percent of Gujarat and 24.5 percent third class children in Chhattisgarh,

The report claims that around 268 schools were inspected during the survey which indicated very encouraging results especially the government schools in several areas.

Himachal Pradesh has been placed at the third position with 84.2 percent in terms of Class-8 reading levels with Mizoram topped the list at 90.1 percent, followed by Kerala at 84.5 percent.

The performance of the students is seen as an encouraging trend for the state which often faced criticism for opening a large number of schools and also upgrading many disproportionately without creating proper infrastructure, funding and availability of the staff.