Vice President of India

Address by the Hon’ble Vice President Shri M. Hamid Ansari at the release of the Annual Status of Education Report ASER 2010 on 14 January 2011 at 1100 hours at Teen Murti Auditorium, New Delhi.

ASER’s simple, reliable and scientific methods of sampling and assessment on a nation-wide scale are important for highlighting the “quality agenda” in education. This is more glaring in the context of our public policy because we neither have an inbuilt evaluation culture nor adequate trained human resources with both technical knowledge and field experience to check and monitor outcomes.

Evidence from around the world demonstrates that “efforts to expand enrolment must be accompanied by attempts to enhance educational quality if children are to be attracted to school, stay there and achieve meaningful learning outcomes”. Public policy can address this challenge with a sharp focus on two issues - quality improvement in teacher training and curricular materials development. It is also essential that what students are meant to learn ought to be clearly defined, well-taught and accurately assessed. Ideally, this should not be limited to knowledge alone but also cover skills, attitudes and values