Over the past two decades, education policy has successfully expanded access. However, government data shows that access and learning outcomes have diverged sharply.
According to India’s Ministry of Education and UDISE+ datasets, enrolment rates at the elementary level exceed 95%. Yet ASER data shows stagnant or declining foundational skills across multiple cohorts. This pattern is not unique to India. The World Bank estimates that 70% of children in low- and middle-income countries experience “learning poverty”, meaning they cannot read a simple text by age 10.
The persistence of this gap reflects a systemic misunderstanding: attendance is treated as a proxy for learning. Administrative metrics are easier to track than cognitive growth, so systems optimise for what is measurable rather than what matters.
Countries that have reduced learning poverty—such as Vietnam and Estonia—did so by investing in assessment coherence, teacher feedback loops, and curriculum-aligned diagnostics. The data is clear: enrolment expansion without assessment reform produces scale without substance.