India, Feb. 2 -- There's a lot to be happy, and hopeful, about the latest ASER or Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) that has since 2005 measured Indian schoolchildren's ability in reading, writing and arithmetic.

Fears that the pandemic, when India had one of the world's longest school closures, would disrupt learning outcomes and lead to children being pulled out of school have proved unfounded, the survey released earlier this week found.

The nationwide household survey of 649,491 children in 15,728 schools in 605 districts across 29 states finds that children are not just back to pre-pandemic levels of learning, but have exceeded earlier outcomes.

For instance, in pre-pandemic 2018, only 28.2% of children in grade 3 could do...