Number Of Students Enrolled In School Has Decreased By 3.3 Million In India
Update: 2021-12-12 13:15 IST
Number Of Students Enrolled In School Has Decreased By 3.3 Million In India (Photo: thelogicalindian)
India's goal of universal school enrollment may be in concern, due to a major steady fall in enrolment, that has resulted in 3.3 million fewer children in school. Since the creation of the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) in 2012-12, the number of school-aged children has decreased from 254.8 million in 2012-13 to 250 million in 2019-20. The drop in child enrolment is far worse than the drop in the child population.
Arun Mehta, former professor of NIEPA and author of the research paper mentioned that average enrolments have been declining at all levels for almost a decade. Mehta went on to say that the issue was that instead of addressing the gradual decline, the administration cited improvement by citing data from 2018-19, when the country's enrolment rate was at its lowest.
The highest enrolment rate in the recent decade was seen in 2015-16, when 260.6 million students enrolled, and the lowest was seen in 2018-19, when 248.3 million students enrolled. Remarkably, the government has only recently announced how the enrolment rate increased in 2019-20, based on statistics from 2018-19 and not earlier years.
While a sharp drop in the number of schools affiliated with UDISE in that year, the enrolment rate continued to rise. The number of schools served by UDISE dropped by 48,292 in 2018-19.
The combination and closure of thousands of schools under NITI Aayog's 'consolidation and rationalisation of schools' programme under Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital may be to blame for the dramatic reduction of schools covered by UDISE.
Meanwhile, Mehta went on to say that no criterion for combining or closing schools has been revealed. The accuracy and trustworthiness of the enrolment figures were significantly questioned in Mehta's study article, highlighting the crucial need for change.