Enrolment in Kerala schools keeps declining

Updated on: Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Enrolment of children in schools of Kerala has been declining steadily over the last few years in what is seen as the result of a successful family planning programme.

In 2008-09, 45.46 lakh students were enrolled in schools, which declined to 44.58 lakh in 2009-10 and came further down to 43.51 lakh in 2010-11, according to the Economic Review tabled in the Assembly recently.
"The change in demographic pattern of the state due to low birth rate is the main reason attributed for this phenomenon," said the review brought out by the state Planning Board.

The trend has been evident in Lower and Upper primary schools, the two main school entry levels. However, the high school section showed a moderate increase in enrolment.

As many as 3962 schools were identified as "uneconomic schools" as they have a mismatch in student-teacher ratio.

However, closing down inviable schools is a difficult option for the government as education is a major employment-generating sector in the state.

Both the CPI(M)-led LDF and Congress-led UDF, which have been in power alternately over the decades, could not ake any radical action against "uneconomic" schools asteachers are highly unionised.

A total of 2918 teachers in the state were categorised as "protected teachers" as they are retained in service despite division falls in schools due to low enrolment.

Girls constituted 49.27 per cent of the enrolment, which shows that the gender gap is virtually absent in education of children in the state. Kerala also has the lowest drop-out rate in the country at 0.66 per cent.

A state that far surpassed most other regions of the country in education, Kerala has a total of 12,642 schools, of which 4501 are government run, 7278 aided and 863 unaided.

The number of teachers in 2010 stood at 171036, of whom 104032 are in aided schools, which are run by private management with the government paying salary of teachers and non-teaching staff.

Enrolment in Kerala schools keeps declining

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