NEW DELHI, Jan. 29 -- The long shadow cast by the Covid-19 pandemic on educational outcomes may have lifted according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2024 report released Tuesday, with the hand of a government scheme to improve foundational learning and numeracy (FLN) being clearly visible.

According to the report, released by the Pratham Foundation , reading levels among government school students in Class III and V have improved compared to pre-pandemic levels, as measured in the 2018 edition of the report. Those of private school students are better than they were in 2022 (when the impact of the pandemic was still being sharply felt), but still lower than pre-pandemic levels, perhaps because they did not have a targett...