The guarantee of education is meaningless if there is no satisfactory learning. There are serious implications for India's equity and growth if basic learning outcomes do not improve soon. The ninth Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2013), which was released on January 15, 2014, in the Capital, highlighted the lack of quality education provided to students between 6-14 years of age as there was no significant improvement in children's ability to read. While the enrolment of students from 6-14 years of age remains high, nationally, the proportion of children in class V who can read a class II level text remains virtually the same since 2012, at 47%. This proportion decreased each year from 2009 to 2012, dropping from 52.8% in 2009 to 46.9% in 2012. Among class V children enrolled in government schools, the percentage of children who were able to read a class II level text decreased from 50.3% (2009) to 43.8% (2011) to 41.1% (2013). In 2013, ASER visited 14,724 government schools.
