VAID S ICS LUCKNOW. Daily Current Affairs Jan (17 th Jan) Education Report (ASER) Why in News? Recently ASER, 2018 report was released by

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1 VAID S ICS LUCKNOW Daily Current Affairs Jan (17 th Jan) Education Report (ASER) 2018 Why in News? NGO Pratham. Recently ASER, 2018 report was released by Page 1

2 About There has been some improvement in the reading and arithmetic skills of lower primary students in rural India over the last decade, the skills of Class VIII students have actually seen a decline. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018, the results of a yearly survey that NGO Pratham has been carrying out since 2006, shows that more than half of Class VIII students cannot correctly solve a numerical division problem and more than a quarter of them cannot read a primary level text. About the Education Report (ASER) 2018: Only 65% class 5 students studying in private schools can read class 2 level text and 44.2% in government schools, which is 2.5% more than 2016.Due to the poor reading ability in class 5 the overall ability to deal with textbooks in higher standards has lowered. Class 2 children are expected to be able to read a simple text fluently and do basic maths like subtraction. But 72% students in Class V can t do division at all and 70% of Class III student aren t able to do any subtraction. For class 8, which is the last year of compulsory education under RTE, one in every four children is without basic reading skills. This number has not changed since In 2018, the highest reading abilities across the country have been reported from Himachal Pradesh at 74.5% followed by Kerala at 73.1% and the lowest is from Jharkhand with only 29.4%. Page 2

3 Enrollment: The proportion of children (age 6-14) who are not enrolled in school has fallen below 3% for the first time in 2018 and stands at 2.8%. Gender differences: Girls are behind boys in basic arithmetic knowledge: only 44% of all girls could solve division problems compared with 50% of the boys. But girls are doing better in states like Himachal, Punjab, Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. ************** External Commercial Borrowing(ECB): Why in News? In a bid to improve ease of doing business, the Reserve Bank of India has decided to liberalise external commercial borrowing (ECB) norms, allowing all companies that are eligible for receiving foreign direct investment, to raise funds through the ECB route. About : The RBI has decided to keep the minimum average maturity period at 3 years for all ECBs, irrespective of the amount of borrowing, except for borrowers specifically permitted to borrow for a shorter period. Earlier, the minimum average maturity period was five years. The ceiling for borrowing remains at $750 million. Page 3

4 External commercial borrowing (ECBs): ECB is the financial instrument used to borrow money from the foreign sources of financing to invest in the commercial activities of the domestic country. Simply, borrowing money from the non-resident lenders and investing it in the commercial activities of India is called as external commercial borrowings. External Commercial Borrowings (ECBs) includes commercial bank loans, buyers credit, suppliers credit, securitized instruments such as Floating Rate Notes and Fixed Rate Bonds etc., ECBs provide opportunity to borrow large volume of funds. The funds are available for relatively long term. Interest rate are also lower compared to domestic funds ECBs are in the form of foreign currencies. Hence, they enable the corporate to have foreign currency to meet the import of machineries etc. Corporate can raise ECBs from internationally recognised sources such as banks, export credit agencies, international capital markets etc. The ECBs have emerged as a major form of foreign capital called as FDI. PSUs and corporate use this ECB as a major platform for the source of investment. ************** Gandhi Peace Prize for 2015,2016,2017 and 2018 announced: Page 4

5 Why in News? The Gandhi Peace Prize for the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 was announced on January 16, 2019 by the Union Ministry of Culture. About: The 2018 Gandhi Peace Prize was conferred on Yohei Sasakawa, who is at the forefront of many philanthropic initiatives. His compassionate nature can be seen in the manner in which he has worked to eliminate leprosy in India. Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari for the year 2015 for their contribution in Rural Development, Education, Development of natural resources. For 2016 jointly to AkshayaPatra Foundation for its contribution in providing mid-day meals to millions of children across India and Sulabh International for its contribution in improving the condition of sanitation in India and emancipation of manual scavengers. EkalAbhiyan Trust for the year 2017 for their contribution in providing Education for Rural and Tribal Children in remote areas pan India, Rural Empowerment, Gender and Social Equality Shri YoheiSasakawa for the year 2018 for his contribution in Leprosy Eradication in India and across the world. *************** Page 5