Low attendance, lack of toilets for girl students in Bihar government schools, says ASER report

However, Bihar falls among the few States that has shown slight learning gains despite schools being closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ASER 2022 report said.

At a time when the Bihar government has prepared to construct “Educational Buildings” in 22 districts in a phased manner for all in-house educational-related activities, the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER-2022) has flagged low attendance of students in government schools of the State along with low educational level, a lack of toilets for girl students and high prevalence of private tuition among students.

The report, led by Pratham Foundation, released on January 18 said, “Student’s attendance in Bihar is below 60% in both primary and upper primary schools as compared to the national average of around 72%”

The report further said, “Bihar has shown a big decline in out-of-school numbers for older children. The number of 15-16 year-old girls not enrolled in schools has fallen to 6.7% in 2022 from 28.2% in 2006.”

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has often been flagging his government’s bicycle and other yojnas (programmes) for changing the face of education in government schools of the State during his regime.

“The latest ASER-2022 report has put a big question mark of what the Chief Minister has been trumpeting,” said Ranvijay Singh, a retired school teacher in Ara.

Of late, Mr. Kumar-led government has approved the construction of “educational buildings” in a phased manner in 22 districts of the State worth of over ₹83 crore so that all educational related activities would happen under a roof in the districts.

“The government has this ambitious plan to construct such educational building in all 38 districts of the state for all education related activities under one roof,” said a senior official of the State education department, preferring anonymity.