Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022

• ASER, a comprehensive citizen-led household survey, has been published. It offers a picture of children's education and learning in rural India.
• The pandemic's effects on education are highlighted in the NGO Pratham's 17th Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022.

Findings of report:

Enrollment overall:

• For the past 15 years, the enrollment rate for students aged 6 to 14 years has been above 95%. Despite the pandemic-related closure of some schools, overall enrollment climbed from 97.2% in 2018 to 98.4% in 2022.
• Enrollment in government schools: From 65.6% in 2018 to 72.9% in 2022, the percentage of kids (aged 6 to 14) enrolled in government schools climbed significantly.
• The percentage of girls aged 11 to 14 who are not enrolled in school nationwide in 2022 is 2%. Only in Uttar Pradesh does this number hover around 4%; in all other states, it is lower.

Basic Reading and Arithmetic Skills:

• In India, young children in Classes 3 and 5 had much less proficiency in basic reading and math.
• For most grades nationwide, children's fundamental math proficiency levels have fallen below levels from 2018. But compared to basic reading, the decreases are less abrupt and the picture is more complex.
• Children's proficiency in reading basic English sentences has been roughly constant across the country for students in Standard V (from 24.7% in 2016 to 24.5% in 2022). For kids in Standard VIII, there have been slight improvements (from 45.3% in 2016 to 46.7% in 2022).

Student and teacher attendance:

• The attendance of pupils and teachers has not significantly changed at the All-India level. Between 2018 and 2022, the average teacher attendance rate grew significantly, from 85.4% to 87.1%. Over the past few years, the average student attendance has been steady at 72%.

School Resources:

• In 2022, 68.4% of schools had functioning girls' restrooms, up from 66.4% in 2018.
• Over the same time period, the percentage of schools with access to drinking water went from 74.8% to 76%, and the percentage of schools where students use books outside textbooks increased from 36.9% to 44%.
• From 26.4% in 2018 to 30.5% in 2022, more children in Standard I through VIII nationwide enrolled in paid private tuition programs.

About ASER:

• An annual household survey conducted by citizens called the ASER tries to determine whether or not school-age children in rural India are enrolled and whether they are receiving instruction.
• Since 2005, ASER has been done annually in all of India's rural districts. It is India's biggest citizen-led survey.
• Urban areas are not included in the ASER because it is a rural study. ASER 2022 provided estimates of children's enrollment status and basic skills at the district, state, and national levels for almost 700,000 kids in over 19,000 villages across 616 districts in India.
• At the national, state, and district levels, ASER surveys offered representative estimates of the enrollment status of children aged 3–16 and the basic reading and math skills of children aged 5–16.

• ASER has significantly contributed to the fact that the topic of learning is now front and center in conversations and debates about education in India.
• Numerous papers, including the World Bank's 2018 World Development Report and the NITI Aayog's Three-Year Action Agenda for 2017-18 to 2019-20, have incorporated ASER data.

World Economic Forum 2023

The 2023 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos, Switzerland, has ended.

Regarding the Annual Meeting:

• The World Economic Forum's annual gathering was in its 53rd year.
• 52 heads of state or government are among the 2,700 leaders from 130 nations who have gathered for the gathering.
• This year's topic was "Cooperation in a Fragmented World," which was set against the backdrop of the conflict in Russia and Ukraine, climate change, and a shifting international political landscape.

What will be the highlights of the Davos Summit in 2023?

Trade Ministers' Coalition on Climate:

• Over 50 nations have joined a new Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate to advance global cooperation on trade, the environment, and sustainable development.
• Stakeholders emphasised the importance of free trade all around the world. The free trade system, which has promoted global economic progress and increased human freedom, remains a worldwide public benefit that cannot be abandoned, even in the current fragmented global economic landscape.
• Giving to Amplify Earth Action (GAEA) is a global initiative led by the WEF and supported by more than 45 partners. It aims to finance new and existing public, private, and philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) in order to help raise the $3 trillion in annual funding necessary to achieve net zero, stop the loss of the environment, and restore biodiversity by the year 2050.
• Global Collaboration Village: The WEF has announced the launch of the Global Collaboration Village, its own metaverse platform.
• It is claimed that more effective communication between global leaders will be possible in the digital environment, which is created to seem like the real town of Davos where the organisation meets once a year.

Chief Economists Outlook:

• A cautious tone was set in the WEF’s Chief Economist's Outlook, which was released. According to the study, two-thirds of respondents believed that a worldwide recession will occur in 2023.
• It examines the main economic developments, including inflation, growth prospects, and monetary and fiscal policies.
• The World Economic Forum Chief Economists Outlook, January 2023 finds that growth prospects remain anaemic and the risk of a global recession is high.
• The IMF expects around a third of the global economy to enter a recession in 2023 and it has cut its forecast of global GDP for the year to 2.7%.
• Businesses face a "triple challenge" at the start of 2023, according to the report: continued high prices of key inputs, alongside tightening monetary policy and weakening demand.
• A new 100-day target for the pandemic response was established by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovations (CEPI).
• To hasten the creation of vaccines and other biologic pandemic defences, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the governments of India and Norway, and the World Economic Forum established CEPI in 2017. Its headquarters is in Oslo, Norway.

India at the 2023 Davos

• By 2035, India will have the third $10 trillion economy, according to the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
• Leaders from around the world praised India's physical and digital infrastructure prowess as well as its capacity to draw foreign investment through programmes like Product-Linked Incentives (PLI). However, they also emphasised the need for labour and land market reforms
• In order to collaborate on the urban transformation agenda, the forum and the Maharashtra Institution for Transformation (MITRA) struck a collaboration.
• In Telangana, the forum also opened its first thematic centre focused on healthcare and life sciences.
• Additionally, Telangana and Allox Advance Materials Pvt Ltd signed a contract to establish a production facility for C-LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) active battery materials.

About The World Economic Forum:

• The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a nonprofit organisation situated in Geneva, Switzerland that was founded in 1971.
• It is recognised as the international organisation for public-private partnership by Swiss authorities.
• The organization's mission is to impact the agendas of nations, regions, and industries by collaborating with leaders in business, politics, academia, and other spheres of society.

Additional Important Lessons from the Annual Meeting:

• Reopening in China: The bullish outlook has been boosted by China discontinuing its Zero-Covid Policy and reopening its businesses. However, doing so would increase its energy usage, which would raise energy prices.
• Friendshoring: As the major trading powers of the United States, Europe, and China pushed their new industrial policies, the World Trade Organization urged the economies to be wary of friendshoring. (Friendshoring means :The technique of moving supply chains to nations with less danger of disruption from political unrest).
• Ukraine-Russia War: Ukraine sought additional financial aid to reconstruct after the war as well as more military assistance to fight its war against Russia.
• Everyone was in agreement that more funding and green energy were required to combat climate change.