NEW DELHI: Right to education may have ensured more children are now enrolled in schools and fewer students are dropping out, but a majority of those who pass out of Class VIII can't do basic maths. A quarter of them can't even read.The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018, by NGO Pratham, found there's been little improvement in learning over the past few years. Sample this: 56% of students in Class VIII can't divide a 3-digit number with a single-digit one; 72% students in Class V can't do division at all and 70% of Class III student aren't able to do any subtraction.The story today is far worse than what it was a decade ago. In 2008, 37% of Class V students could do basic maths; now, less than 28% can. The only consolation: things are a little better from a few years back: in 2016, this was only 26%.Our students are struggling with reading as well. Nationally, one out of four children are leaving Class VIII without basic reading skills. While 84.8% students of Class VIII could read Class II-level texts in 2008, the number has dropped to 72.8% in 2018.Girls are behind boys in basic arithmetic knowledge: only 44% of all girls could solve division problems compared with 50% of the boys. But girls are doing better in states like Himachal, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.The data for the report was collected from 596 rural districts across 28 states, covering 3.5 lakh households and 5.5 lakh children in the age group of 3 to 16 years.