CHENNAI: The Annual Status of Education Report ‘Beyond Basics’ 2023 survey released on Wednesday showed a notable variation in educational preference among Tamil Nadu’s youth in class 11 or higher as compared to the national average.
The report showed 72.7% of TN students opted for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) courses in contrast to the national scenario, in which most students in this age group (55.7%) lean towards the arts/humanities stream.
While 24% of boys in TN said they wanted to become engineers, 21% of girls wanted to become doctors and 23.3% nurses. Only 11.5% of TN students preferred arts and humanities and 7.3% commerce. While 5.6% of surveyed youth said they were enrolled in vocational training or other related courses across the country, this number was only 1.8% in TN.
‘51% in 17-18 age group can’t do math’
The basic ASER collects information about enrollment in preschool and school for children in the age group of three to 16 and assesses children aged five to 16 one-on-one to understand their foundational reading and arithmetic abilities. In the intervening years, ASER conducts surveys on different aspects of children’s schooling and learning in rural India.
This year, the survey attempted to understand what life is like for young people in the age group 14 to 18 in rural India. This year’s survey was conducted in 28 districts across 26 states, reaching 34,745 youth in the age group 14-18 years. In TN, the survey covered 1,323 students in the 14-18 age group in 60 villages in Perambalur district. This includes 936 students aged 14-16 and 387 aged 17 or 18.
According to the report, only 0.7% of TN children in the 14-16 age group were not enrolled in school or college (7.1% nationally), the figure surged to 8% in the 17-18 category (24.4% nationally). Notably, female dropout rates were significantly lower at 0.2% and 4% in the 14-16 and 17-18 age groups, respectively, compared to males at 1.3% and 12% in the same category.
The overall dropout rate among youngsters in the age group of 14-18 was at 2.8%, with boys at 4.4% and girls at 1.3%. While the students performed fairly well in the reading tests in both English and Tamil, their basic arithmetic skills were cause for concern. Nearly half of the students (46.7%) in the 14 to 16 and over half (51%) in the 17-18 category were not able to perform basic arithmetic. Meanwhile, 22.9% and 14.8% of children in the 14-16 and 17-18 age groups respectively could not read Class 2 Tamil and 23.3% and 17.4% could not read English sentences.
The survey also showed that there is a slight bias towards providing education in private schools or colleges for men compared to women. Commenting on the survey’s findings, a government school teacher said the main problem TN government schools is the lack of enough teachers in primary classes.
As far as ownership of digital devices is concerned, the survey found that 92.3% of the TN youth had smartphones at home. However, More boys (63.3%) owned mobile phones in the 17-18 age group compared to girls (31%). Of those who can use a smartphone, only 33% in the 14-16 category It was 58.4% for the 17-18 category. The number was also relatively lower for girls with 23.6% and 47.1% respectively. The numbers also showed that youngsters used the phone for entertainment-related activities rather than education-related activities.