UP-Tamil Nadu Education Status Row: What ASER Data Shows About Post-Pandemic Progress By These States

Last Updated:March 13, 2025, 19:58 IST

ASER, led by Pratham Foundation, a non-profit with a focus on children’s enrolment and learning abilities in rural India, returned to its 'basic' nationwide survey in 2024, reaching almost all rural districts in India

Overall, the report showed that there has been a significant recovery from the Covid pandemic-induced learning loss across states. (Representational image)

As the standoff between the BJP-led central government and DMK MPs continues in Parliament over the implementation of the Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the attacks from both sides are only getting sharper. The latest was the Bharatiya Janata Party’s post on social media accusing Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin’s government of crippling the state’s education system, citing the Annual Status of Education Report (2024) to show how the state was falling behind BJP-ruled states.

“The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 confirms Tamil Nadu’s students are falling behind. Between 2018-2022, the % of Std VIII students who can read Std II-level text dropped by 12%, while BJP-ruled states like UP, Gujarat & Haryana improved. DMK has FAILED an entire generation," the BJP posted from its official X handle on Wednesday.

Here is what ASER-2024 (Rural) released on January 28, 2025, exactly said on the status of school education in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and other states:

ASER, led by Pratham Foundation, a non-profit with a focus on children’s enrolment and learning abilities in rural India, returned to its “basic" nationwide survey in 2024, reaching almost all rural districts in India.

Overcoming Covid impact

Overall, the report showed that there has been a significant recovery from the Covid pandemic-induced learning loss across states. At the all-India level, the survey showed a full recovery of learning levels post-pandemic, with the proportion of class 3 children reading fluently at 27.1%. This figure had dropped to 20.5% in 2022 from 27.3% in 2018. “What is remarkable about the recovery is that it is completely driven by government schools," the report stated.

The report shows that both UP and Tamil Nadu were among states like Gujarat and Uttarakhand that saw over a 10-percentage point increase in class 5 reading levels. Overall, in 2024, Mizoram (64.9%) and Himachal Pradesh (64.8%) had the highest proportions of class 5 students in government schools able to read a class 2 level text.

It also highlighted that while most states have shown major gains made by government schools in both reading and arithmetic since 2022, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pradesh—both non-NDA states—recorded the highest, over a 15-percentage point increase in these aspects.

While in most states, ASER roped in the District Institute of Education and Training (DIETs) for carrying out the survey, the organisations that conducted the survey in TN included the Association of Rural Education and Development Service (AREDS), Karur, AVVAI Village Welfare Society, Karaikal, Blessings Life Foundation, Kanyakumari, Catholic Health Association of Tamilnadu, Tiruchirapalli, and Multipurpose Social Service Society (CMSSS), among others.

According to the survey statistics, while Tamil Nadu (TN) is among states with the highest pre-primary institution enrolment, there was a drop in reading and arithmetic skills of students in primary schools in 2024 when compared to pre-pandemic levels of 2018.

Reading, arithmetic levels

The report shows TN is among states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Odisha where enrolment in pre-primary institutions exceeds 95%. However, while some states have shown full recovery to pre-pandemic levels, in the case of Tamil Nadu, it has not been able to recover completely in terms of reading and arithmetic in primary and middle school education.

As per the report’s statistics, Tamil Nadu shows a significant drop in the percentage of government school students in class 5 who can read a class 2 level text compared to the pre-pandemic levels. In 2018, the percentage of such students enrolled in the state’s government schools was 46.3%, which fell sharply in 2022 to 26% due to the pandemic-induced closure of schools. In 2024, though there was almost a 10-percentage point recovery in these levels at 37%, it could not recover fully to the pre-pandemic levels.

Similarly, the state saw a decline in the percentages of government school students in classes 5 and 8 who can do division. Class 5 figures show that in 2018 the percentage of such students was 27.1%, which fell in 2022 to 14.7% and recovered only partially in 2024 at 20.7%.

In class 8 also the trend is similar. The percentage of students able to do division in 2018 stood at 49.6%, which dropped to 43.5% in 2022, and in 2024, it was 37.8%.

On the contrary, UP, which has lagged behind for years in these aspects, has shown good recovery from where it stood before the pandemic. The state achieved significant improvement in class 3 reading levels, rising from 12.3% in 2018 to 16.4% in 2022 to 27.9% in 2024.

Similarly, the state showed a major improvement in the percentage of government school students in class 5 who could read a class 2 level text. In 2018, it was 36.2%, and in 2022 this figure was 38.3%, which rose to 50.5% in 2024.

In arithmetic too, data shows that the percentage of students in class 8 able to do division rose from 32% in 2018 to 41.7% in 2022 and 45.6% in 2024.

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