Today, December 19, the Odisha government claimed that the dropout rate in Class X was 27 per cent in the state in 2021-22 and not 49.9 per cent as stated by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in the Lok Sabha a day before. Odisha School Education Programme Authority Director Anupam Shah asserted that the Centre's data did not include the number of students admitted to various industrial training schools after passing the Class X, as stated in a report by PTI.
Additionally, he said that the school and mass education department will soon clarify its stand on the prevailing dropout rates at the school level. Responding to a question on Odisha registering the highest dropout rate of 49.9 per cent in Class X in 2021-22, he said, the data released by the Centre was old.
"The data released by the Centre did not include the number of students admitted to different industrial training schools. The overall dropout rate at present (2022-23) in Odisha would be 17 per cent,” Shah told PTI. He further explained that the dropout rate is calculated by comparing the number of students in Class XI in a year and the same in Class X in the previous year.
“However, there is no mention of students who pass the 10th standard and take admissions to technical and vocational schools, polytechnic and open schools across the state," the official said.
Pradhan's written response
The dropout rate in Class X stands at 20.6 per cent as of 2021-22 with Odisha being the worst performing state in this regard followed by Bihar, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Lok Sabha on December 18. The dropout rate in Class X was 49.9 per cent in Odisha and 42.1 per cent in Bihar, Pradhan said in his written response.
Opposition joins the race
Meanwhile, the opposition BJP and the Congress slammed the BJD government in the state over the "rising" dropout rates in schools. BJP leader and opposition chief whip in the assembly, Mohan Charan Majhi, said, “Odisha topped the list of dropouts at the Class X level. It is a shame for the people who claim that they have brought rapid transformation in the education sector. Odisha has registered a downward transformation in school education.”
The rate of school dropout was 12.8 per cent in 2018-19, and the same increased four-fold to 49.9 per cent in 2021-22, he claimed. “Can we call it transformation?” the BJP lawmaker asked, adding that the BJD government's claim is "baseless".
Former Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Prasad Harichandan held the, "faulty policy of the state government" responsible for high dropouts. “The government has constructed some beautiful school buildings but there are no teachers. Who will motivate students belonging to poor families to continue their studies, if there is a dearth of teachers,” he asked.
Additionally, Harichandan alleged that a large number of students migrate to other states as labourers because of "massive unemployment in Odisha", PTI reported.
