Facilitated by Pratham, ASER(meaning impact in Hindi) is the largest household survey undertaken in India by people outside the government. It annually measures the enrollment as well as the reading and arithmetic levels of children in the age group of 6-14 years.

ASER is carried out by a local organization or institution in each rural district in the country, using a common set of tools and a common sampling frame. In 2008, ASER reached over 7,04,000 children in 16,198 villages in 564 rural districts in India. More than 32,000 volunteers from NGOs, colleges and universities, youth and women groups participated in this effort.

The survey is being conducted since 2005 and each year, the entire effort from start to finish takes only 100 days. The report is released in January every year. The findings are disseminated widely within government and outside at the national, state, district and village level.

ASER has become an important input in the educational policies of both the Central and State governments.   The findings of the survey have been referred to in the approach paper to the 11th Planning Commission and several state governments use the findings to define their educational programs each year.  Since the last 4 years the report has been released by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

In 2007, the ASER centre was established with funding from Google Inc. to institutionalize this process. The objectives of this centre are to strengthen different aspects of this process and to build capacity at state and district level individuals and institutions to design and conduct basic surveys, assessment and analysis activities in education and other social sectors. Read more at www.asercentre.org