Daily Current Affairs – 2020

Topic: For Prelims and Mains

Annual Status of Education Report (ASER)2019

Why in news?

Annual Status of Education Report flags poor learning outcomes in schools.

More about the news :

• It is an annual status report released by the Non-Profit Organization Pratham.
• ASER surveyors visited almost 37,000 children between 4 and 8 years in 26 rural districts across 24 States.
• They asked each child to do a variety of tasks testing cognitive skills, sort images by colour and size, recognize patterns, and fit together a four-piece animal puzzle as well as simple literacy and numeracy tests.
• Social and emotional development was tracked through activities using cards with faces showing happiness, sadness, anger and fear.

Key findings of the survey :

• Number of girls enrolled in government schools is higher than number of boys. On the other hand, number of boys enrolled in private institutions is higher than that of girls.
• Only 39% of girls aged 6-8 are enrolled in private schools in comparison to almost 48% of boys.
• Only 16% of children in Class 1 in 26 surveyed rural districts can read text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognize letters.
• Of six-year olds in Class 1, 41.5% of those in private schools could read words in comparison to only 19% from government schools.
• Similarly, 28% of those in government schools could do simple addition as against 47% in private schools.
• The report also found that more than a quarter of Class 1 students in government schools are only 4 or 5 years old, younger than the recommended age.

Raisina Dialogue

Why in news?

Fifth edition of the Raisina Dialogue is being held in New Delhi.

• More than 700 international participants, including 80 from African countries, are attending the meet.
• This year`s Dialogue is titled `Navigating the Alpha Century`.

About the Raisina Dialogue:

• This is an annual geo-political event, organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
• It is designed to explore prospects and opportunities for Asian integration as well as Asia’s integration with the larger world.
• It is predicated on India’s vital role in the Indian Ocean Region and how India along with its partners can build a stable regional and world order.

Participants:

• The conference is a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral meeting involving policy and decision-makers, including but not limited to Foreign, Defence and Finance Ministers of different countries, high-level government officials and policy practitioners, leading personalities from business and industry, and members of the strategic community, media and academia.

Significance of the event:

• The Raisina Dialogue was born in 2016, in the belief that the Asian century that the world was talking about was not about any exclusive geographical region.
• It was rather about the engagement of global actors with Asia and of Asia with the world.
• So this dialogue took birth as a platform, where the old and the new could work together, to discover their connections, their inter-dependence.

Fact For Prelims

Island Development Agency (IDA):

• The IDA was set up on June 1, 2017 for the development of islands.
• The meetings of the agency are chaired by the Union Home Minister.

Composition:

• Members of the IDA include cabinet secretary,
• Home secretary,
• Secretary (environment,
• Forests and climate change),
• Secretary  (tourism) and secretary (tribal welfare).