NEW DELHI: The eleventh Annual Survey of Education Report ( ASER ), released on Monday, has given a glimmer of hope by acknowledging improvements in learning levels, largely driven by government schools.While ASER has been warning of an alarming dip in the country’s learning levels at school over the years, this year’s report notes a welcome improvement in children’s reading ability and arithmetic understanding — especially in early grades in government schools. This is the first year since 2010 that there is an upward trend in arithmetic figures.Learning levels apart, enrollment levels continue to increase and there is also a significant increase in the number of useable toilets for school goers —an improvement that may possibly be attributed to the Modi government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Out of school children, however, have increased in certain states including poll-bound Uttar Pradesh . UP’s teaching strategy has also drawn criticism in the ASER report which says that “barely 7% children (less than one in ten) in standard III in an average government school can cope with what the teacher is doing in class”.Here are the details from ASER 2016 - a report based on an annual household survey in rural India conducted by the NGO Pratham.ASER focuses on the status of children’s schooling and basic learning: ASER 2016 notes that the proportion of children in the Class 3 who are able to read at least class 1level text has gone up from 40.2% in 2014 to 42.5% in 2016 with a substantial increase of 7% up among children in government schools in states like Punjab, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chhattisgarh , Gujarat, Maharashtra and Telangana The proportion of children in Class V who could read a Class II level text improved by more than 5 percentage points from 2014 to 2016 in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tripura, Nagaland and Rajasthan . This improvement is driven by gains in learning levels in government schools in these state.The all India (rural) figures for basic arithmetic have improved for class III. In 2014, 25.4% of class III children could do a 2-digit subtraction, the number in 2016 is 27.7% with the improvement registered primarily from government schools which showed an increase from 17.2% in 2014 to 20.2% in 2016. In almost all states there is some improvement in the arithmetic levels of children enrolled in government schools in Class III.Enrollment continue to show an upward swing up from 96.7% in 2014 to 96.9% in 2016 for age group 6-14 and 83.4% in 2014 to 84.7% in 2016 for the age group 15-16. Some states have shown an increase in out-of-school children.For children (age 6-14), it has increased between 2014 and 2016 — Madhya Pradesh (3.4% to 4.4%), Chhattisgarh (2% to 2.8%), and Uttar Pradesh (4.9% to 5.3). In other states, the proportion of out-of-school girls (age group 11-14) also remains greater than 8%. These states are Rajasthan (9.7%) and Uttar Pradesh (9.9%). Joining them in 2016 is Madhya Pradesh (8.5%).There is no significant increase in private school enrollment between 2014 and 2016. However, both in Kerala and Gujarat, there was an increase in government school enrolment while Uttarakhand ( Arunachal Pradesh and Assam showed increase in private school enrolment in in the 6-14 age group.The proportion of small schools in the government primary school sector continues to grow as does the percentage of multigrade. Of the government primary schools visited in 2016, close to 40% are small schools with a total enrollment of 60 children or less. 8.9% of the upper primary schools visited had a total enrollment of 60 children or less.Since 2010, there has been significant progress in the availability of usable toilets. Nationally in 2016, 68.7% of schools visited had toilet facilities that were useable as compared 47.2% in 2010. In 2016, only 3.5% of the schools visited had no toilet facility.The proportion of schools visited where girls' toilets were available and usable has gone up from 32.9% in 2010 to 55.7% in 2014 to 61.9% in 2016. In four states, 80% or more schools visited had usable girls' toilets - namely Gujarat, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.Nationally, no change in the availability of computers in schools since 2014. However, some states stand out in terms of high provision of computers- Kerala, 89% of schools visited had computers; 75.2% in Gujarat, 55.1% in Maharashtra and 57.3% in Tamil Nadu The proportion of schools with libraries has fallen from 78.1% in 2014 to 75.5% in 2016. However, children were seen using library books in more schools in 2016.