Page 60 - EW February 2023

Special Report

COGNITIVE & AFFECTIVE SKILLS STUDY 2022

INDIA'S SNOWBALLING

SEL SKILLS DEFICIT

Released last December, CASS 2022 indicts the country’s
1.48 million government and private schools for failure
to sufficiently develop children’s social and emotional
learning skills, positive attitudes, beliefs and values

Summiya Yasmeen

A LTHOUGH MAINSTREAM MEDIA India’s 1.48 million primary-secondary, especially govern-

ment, schools.
reports at the fag end of the aca-
demic year 2022-23 and on the eve
While ASER 2022 is focused on children’s learning out-
comes evaluated on the basis of out-of-school field testing,
of the new school year gloss over the
another report released in December indicates that India’s
learning, psychological, social and
emotional disequilibrium suffered
by India’s 260 million school-going
and emotional skills and positive attitudes.
children during the 82-week Covid 260 million school-going children are not acquiring social
A research survey titled Cognitive & Affective Skills
pandemic lockdown, two authorita- Study in Schools Across India (CASS 2022), released in
tive recently released reports paint a dismal picture of K-12 the national capital on December 5 by the Delhi-based Cen-
education in post-pandemic India. tre for Science of Student Learning (CSSL, estb.2015),
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 an educational research organisation that “builds capacity
of the reputed Pratham Education Foundation released in for diagnostic student learning assessments and research-
Delhi on January 19, reveals a precipitous decline in chil- es how children learn,” indicts the country’s 1.48 million
dren’s reading capability to 2012 level (79.5 percent class government and private schools for failure to sufficiently
III children cannot read class II texts) and drop in basic develop children’s social and emotional skills, positive at-
arithmetic learning (74.1 percent class III children can’t do titudes and provide them a “nurturing school climate”.
simple subtraction sums). This poor academic score card Yet while ASER 2022 drew media headlines, CSSL’s
of school children in rural India has prompted anguished important study of the psychological and emotional well-
newspaper and television reports and analyses from educa- being of children — a precondition of high academic learn-
tion pundits lamenting steadily falling learning outcomes in ing outcomes — has attracted little media or academic at-

60 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2023