Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the 2022-23 Economic Survey in Parliament on January 31, revealing a drop in school dropout rates and an uptick in school and higher education enrollment. The survey also indicated improved gender parity in the current fiscal year.
School education
The Gross Enrolment Ratios (GER) in primary school (Class I to V, ages 6-10) improved for both boys and girls in the fiscal year, reversing the declining trend from FY-17 to FY-19, according to the Economic Survey. The GER in upper-primary schools (Class VI to VIII, ages 11-13) improved in FY-22 after being stagnant from FY-17 to FY-19. The GER for girls in both primary and upper-primary levels is higher than that of boys.
The survey reports 26.5 crore children enrolled in schools in FY-22, with a 19.4 lakh increase in primary to higher-secondary levels. The total enrollment of Children with Special Needs (CWSN) rose 3.3% to 22.7 lakh in FY-22, up from 21.9 lakh in FY-21.
Enrollment increased at all levels except pre-primary, which declined from 1.1 crore in FY-21 to 1 crore in FY-22. The survey reports 1 crore children enrolled in pre-primary, 12.2 crore in primary, 6.7 crore in upper-primary, 3.9 crore in secondary, and 2.9 crore in higher-secondary. The pupil-teacher ratio, an indicator of education quality, improved continuously from FY-13 to FY-22: from 34.0 to 26.2 at the primary level, 23 to 19.6 at the upper-primary level, 30.0 to 17.6 at the secondary level, and 39.0 to 27.1 at the higher-secondary level.
The report concludes that the improvement in the number of schools, teachers' availability and facilities in schools are expected to help improve enrolment and reduce dropout. It adds that school dropout rates, for both boys and girls, at all levels have also witnessed a steady decline in recent years.
Higher education
"The total enrolment in higher education has increased to nearly 4.1 crore in FY-21 from 3.9 crore in FY-20. Since FY-15, there has been an increase of around 72 lakh in enrolment (21 per cent). The female enrolment has increased to two crore in FY-21 from 1.9 crore in FY-20," the report says. "The enrolment in distance education is 45.7 lakh (with 20.9 lakh females), an increase of around seven per cent since FY-20 and 20 per cent since FY-15," it adds.
The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in higher education increased from 25.6 in FY-20 to 27.3 in FY-21, based on revised 2011 population projections. The GER for males rose from 24.8 to 26.7 during the same period, while the GER for females improved from 26.4 to 27.9, according to the survey, as per a PTI report.
