The report, covering 30,000 kids in five states including Andhra Pradesh, said most classrooms are "not childfriendly at all" The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) on “teaching and learning in rural India” has claimed that a majority of children of primary classes in rural areas are at least two grades below the required level of proficiency in both mathematics and language.

The report also said that  while the ability of children to correctly formulate and write sentences on their own is “exceedingly” low, a high proportion of children in Class 4 were struggling with basic multiplication and divisions.

The ASER report, released on Friday, covered 30,000 children in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan to assess the children’s abilities and what most affected their learning. “Children are expected to read simple words in standard I, less than 30 per cent could read them in standard II and only 40 per cent in Class 3,” the report said.

The report said of 11,000 children tested in Class 5, only three out of 10 children were able to comfortably and fluently read a Class 3 level test. In case of maths, it said most children in Class 4 were able to recognise numbers under 100, but less than 30 per cent could recognise numbers above 1000.

Assessing the students’ ability in maths, the report said 75 per cent of them were able to solve numerical one digit addition problem, a task they were supposed to do in standard I. The report also underlined the need to put in place a system to track attendance with regular reporting and monitoring in an effort to improve attendance.

Criticising school infrastructure it stated that most of the primary school classrooms are “not childfriendly at all” and called for defining of child-friendly education indicators.“The lack of student friendly environment was reflected by the fact that students ask teachers questions in only about a quarter of all classrooms.

Teachers smile or laugh with students in about one fifth of all classrooms,” it added. The report said in about three-quarters of classrooms, the students comprised children both from two to three grades sitting together.