Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) measures basic literacy and numeracy skills, revealing the unspoken problem that school enrolment does not automatically translate into learning. Despite India achieving 97% school enrolment, poor attendance, oversized classes and antiquated teaching methods have led to a learning crisis.

The hard data we’ve collected in the ten years we’ve conducted the survey has become an essential reference guide for how the Indian government at every level allocates funds and develops education policies. Our data enables citizens to demand action and governments to make informed decisions.

This idea of “evidence for action” led to the formation in 2008 of India’s ASER Centre, an independent unit within the Pratham network. Identifying and quantifying a problem is the first step in enabling action at the community level; the ASER Centre provides such knowledge by measuring, monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of social sector programmes.

For over a decade, Pratham volunteers have tested 600,000 children annually in more than 16,000 villages across India to determine their level of reading and math skills.

Pratham has developed simple assessment tools that anyone can administer anywhere. Tests consist of two papers: one asks children to read letters, words, paragraphs and stories; the other presents number recognition and mathematical problems in subtraction and division. Test administrators record the highest level at which each child is capable, and this information is consolidated into a village report card.

The survey also evaluates the quality of a school’s facilities, including books, supplies, toilets and drinking water.

ASER’s rigorous methodology, uniform procedures and simple assessment tools quantify learning in concrete and actionable ways.

ASER volunteers don’t go into the schools; instead they visit a sampling of homes in every rural district in India. The survey becomes an ongoing dialogue with the community as volunteers engage parents, teachers and neighbours in the process. Children take the tests in front of the village, making the quality of their school’s education visible to all.

Such awareness turns to action when communities realise their schools are failing their children.

By visiting children at home, ASER volunteers collect data on the large number of children who are enrolled in school but don't make it to the classroom.

Such a large undertaking requires enormous support, and Pratham effectively uses low-cost methods to achieve wide-scale assessments. 25,000 volunteers from more than 500 partner organisations help conduct the survey over a period of 100 days. Results are tallied quickly and widely distributed inside and outside the government.

In 2013, Pratham set up a Measurement, Monitoring and Evaluation (MME) unit to evaluate the effectiveness of its programmes. The MME assesses outcomes, provides feedback for improvements, and suggests adjustments necessary for scaling up our programmes and making them sustainable.

In 2015, Pratham recruited hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens to stand up for the children in their communities through the Lakhon Mein Ek campaign. The three-month effort mobilised 375,000 volunteers to assess the literacy and numeracy level of 10 million children. Village report cards were generated and shared with the community as a first step toward advocating for their children’s educational needs.    

Having successfully provided data on primary school children for over a decade, Pratham sought to better understand the condition of youth between the ages of 14 and 18. This generation is the first to have finished eight years of school since India’s Right to Education Act was passed. For this older age group, the pilot survey measured a broader set of dimensions. Roughly 2,000 volunteers from 35 partner institutions conducted the inaugural survey of 28,323 youth across 24 states.

Earlier this year, the ASER Centre conducted Beyond Basics, its first-ever survey of 14 to 18 year olds. The report concluded that millions of children and young adults are receiving neither the preparation nor the education needed to support themselves, their families and ultimately their communities.

In India, ASER resulted in the creation of our Read India program, where we strive to ensure that all children acquire basic reading, writing and math skills.

ASER- modelled surveys are being implemented in seven other countries— Pakistan, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mali, Mexico and Senegal—to measure learning outcomes and advocate for improved quality of education.

Our ASER model has inspired parallel citizen-led assessments (CLAs), with seven other countries already implementing CLAs and five more slated to enact them in the coming year. Spanning three continents, these CLA efforts are reaching more than a million children annually. Jointly, this People's Action for Learning (PAL) network strives to bring learning and measurement to the centre of educational policy and practice.