Dr. Wilima Wadhwa has been Director of ASER Centre and, since July 2015, has taken over as Head of the Centre. She has been associated with the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) since its inception in 2005. She is the architect of the ASER survey and other primary research studies currently undertaken by ASER Centre. ASER’s unique approach to measuring learning outcomes has been recognized nationally and internationally and has also been adapted by several other countries in Asia and Africa. Dr. Wadhwa earned an undergraduate degree, with Honors, in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, postgraduate degrees in Economics from Delhi University and University of California, and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California. She has been published extensively and teaches statistics and econometrics at the University of California (Irvine), and the Indian Statistical Institute (New Delhi). She has also been a member of various government committees, including the Working Group for the Revision of Wholesale Price Index Numbers, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India. Dr. Wadhwa’s other research interests include development and monetary economics.

Sampling

ASER samples households, not children. All children aged 3-16 who reside in sampled households are included in the survey. Enrolment information is recorded for all these children, while basic learning levels are assessed for children aged 5-16.

In each district, 30 villages are sampled from the most recent Census village directory using Probability Proportional to Size (PPS), a sampling technique that is commonly used for large scale surveys. 20 households are randomly sampled in each village. This generates a total of 600 sampled households in each rural district or about 3,00,000 households at the national level.

The sample design employs a rotating panel of villages. Each year, 10 villages from three years ago are dropped and 10 new villages are added. For example, in ASER 2010, 10 villages from ASER 2007 were dropped, 10 villages from 2008 and 2009 were retained and 10 new villages from the census village directory of 2001 were added. This strategy generates a representative picture of each district.

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