According to the Ministry of Education's Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) data, school enrollment in India dropped by 37 lakh in the academic year 2023-24, compared to the previous year, reported PTI, today, Wednesday, January 1.
An overview
The 'UDISE Plus' is a platform maintained by the Ministry of Education (MoE) to aggregate school education data from across India.
Here's the collated data:
- Enrollment in 2022-23: 25.17 crore students
- Enrollment in 2023-24: 24.80 crore students
Decrease in enrollment (gender-wise)
The data highlights a decrease in enrollment among both genders:
- Female students: A decline of 16 lakh students
- Male students: A drop of 21 lakh students
Minority representation in enrollment
Minorities constitute around 20% of total school enrollment
- Muslims: 79.6%
- Christians: 10%
- Sikhs: 6.9%
- Buddhists: 2.2%
- Jains: 1.3%
- Parsis: 0.1%
Caste-wise distribution
The caste-wise distribution of students in UDISE plus 2023-24 is as follows:
- General category: 26.9%
- Scheduled Caste (SC): 18%
- Scheduled Tribe (ST): 9.9%
- Other Backward Classes (OBC): 45.2%
Aadhaar integration for data accuracy
For the first time, student-wise data was collected along with Aadhaar numbers on a voluntary basis to ensure uniqueness and better identification.
By 2023-24, over 19.7 crore students had provided their aadhar numbers.
Inference drawn
Officials noted that the student-wise data represents a shift from the previous school-wise consolidated data, which means that the current data cannot be directly compared to reports from 2021-22 or earlier years. This new approach helps identify "ghost students" and enables better governance and resource management, reported PTI.
Addressing dropout rates and policy goals
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim to reduce dropouts and provide universal access to education by 2030. With the individual student-wise data, dropouts can now be tracked more accurately, helping to retain students and monitor their progression throughout their school journey.
The report further stated that in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Rajasthan, there is an underutilisation of schools, as the number of available schools exceeds the number of enrolled students.
In contrast, states such as Telangana, Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Bihar show better infrastructure utilisation, with fewer available schools compared to the number of students enrolled.
