Girls Lag In Digital Know-How: ASER 2023 Report
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023 ‘Beyond Basics’ survey is published by Pratham, an education non-profit organisation demonstrated the existing difference between the male and female technical knowledge and nuance of smartphone use.
ASER survey is facilitated every alternate year, since 2005. In the intervening year ASER focuses on different aspects of children’s education and learning. In 2023, ASER focused on youth’s ability of age group 14-18 years to apply reading and math skills to every day situations and their aspirations. In addition, it also captured digital access and skills in rural India.
ASER 2023 Report: Key highlights
86.8% of people between the ages of 14 and 18 are enrolled in educational institutions.
According to ASER 2017, 16% of females aged 14 to 18 were not in school, compared to 11.9% of males – a difference of 4.1 percentage points. That difference has shrunk to only 0.2 percentage points this year.
Girls are more willing to continue studying even longer and are remaining in schools. 6.8% of men and 7.4% of women respectively were enrolled in undergraduate and other courses. Among women, 44.3% desired to enrol in undergraduate degrees, compared to 41.2% of men.
Across all enrolment groups, girls (76%) outperform boys (70.9%) when reading a Class II level text in their mother tongue. However, men do better than women in math and English reading comprehension.
In technical and functional task, including time calculations, weight addition, length measurements, and the use of the unitary technique, male performed better than female. For example, just 41.1% of females and 51% of males could tell the time. Similarly, 88% of men and 82% of women could measure length.
Men do better than women on all financial computation problems.
There are differences in the technical proficiency of males and females aged 14 to 18 when using smartphones. Compared to women, men in this age range are more than twice as likely to own a smartphone and use it for a greater range of activities.
Just under 30% of female respondents had an email address, compared to 50% of male respondents. Only approximately 50% of young people who use social media are aware of the online safety settings that were asked about in the poll. Compared to women, men are more likely to be aware of these settings.
