

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).