Enrolment In Schools Declined By Over A Crore, Shows UDISE+ Report

The Ministry of Education🐠 recently released a report that shows that enrolment of students in schools has declined by over a crore in 2022-23 and 2023-24. The national average enrolment number is about 26 crore every year over the previous four years. The Ministry is attributing the drop to improved data collection methods that eliminated duplicate entries.

The Ministry’s Unified District Information System For Education Plus (UDISE+🌺) reports show that school enrolment across India remained above 26 crore from 2018-19 to 2021-22, showing increases of a few lakh students each year. During the pandemic, 2020-21, there was a slight drop, and since the numbers have been falling. In 2022-23, school enrolments stood at 25.17 crore, and by 2023-24, they had dropped to 24.8 crore.

📖The number of boy students dropping out is larger than the girls. About 16 lakh girls dropped out, while number of boys fell by 21 lakh. 

♈The question of dropouts is to be understood in a historical and socio-cultural context, says Garima Aggarwal, an Edu-Start-Up Consultants with over 20 years of experience in the field. “The pandemic and related school closures presented an alternative to learning from the established norm of going to school,” she says, adding that “post pandemic, education is competing with many other opportunities—including online learning. To compete now, education systems need to look at what is the carrot that will excite kids the most. Last year made it evident that cost of living has gone up exponentially and if you look at these factors in combination— enticing alternatives to education, lack of a strong incentive to go to school and rising costs— it could point to why families are choosing not to send kids to school.”

UDISE+ is a India’s most comprehensive database on school education from the pre-primary to higher secondary levels. The Ministry of Education maintains the online platform, through which data on school education is collected from all states. The reports are based on this data using parameters such as school enrolment, infrastructure, and teachers. This data is key while allocating funds for schemes like the midday meals scheme (PM-POSHAN), Samagra Shiksha, and scholarships.

Why is enrolment dropping?

𒈔 The Ministry of Education has stated that enrolment drop is because of a “major departure” in data collection methods for the two new reports, and maintaining this as the reason for the decline in numbers.

ꦆ For past years’ reports, the Ministry collected data school-wise, with each school uploading details about how many children are in a class, gender of the child, etc. From 2022-23 onwards, data is being collected student-wise, which means that details of each student, their name, address, parents’ name, Aadhaar numbers, is being entered into the UDISE+ system. The data is then verified at the level of a school cluster, and at the district and State levels.  The Ministry has reportedly said that the new method has “weeded out ghost students,” that is students who are doubly enrolled in government and private schools.

🔯 The biggest drop has been in Bihar where enrolment declined 35.65 lakh in 2023-24 from 2018-19, and this was followed by UP with a drop of 28.26 lakh.

Why was the data collection method changed?

💙In the new system, data of over 60 items is collected for each student. In addition to details like parents’ name, address, Aadhaar, height, and weight, it also requires the student’s exam results and yearly attendance.

 The official said that with this, UDISE+ has become “a more accurate registry”. The change was a result of a recommendation in the National Education Policy 2020♍, the Ministry said.  The aim is “to achieve universal participation in school by carefully tracking students, as well as their learning levels”.

ღ The new system includes a teachers registry with a profile for each teacher to help track their attendance. There were around 98 lakh teachers in 2023-24.