Enrolment in primary schools plunges 2.6 million in two years

Updated on: Tuesday, March 22, 2011

It is a lesson in misplaced enthusiasm. While the Centre has been busy tom-tomming its efforts to send more children to school, enrolment in primary classes in the country has, in actuality, dropped since 2007.

Between 2008-09 and 2009-10, enrolment in classes I to IV in Indian schools dropped by over 2.6 million. The biggest setback was witnessed in Uttar Pradesh, where admissions plummeted by over a million in the last two years, according to the latest data released by the human resource development ministry.

The slide in national figures began between 2007-08 and 2008-09 and became steeper between 2008-09 and 2009-10. Ironically, it was last year that the Centre cleared the Right to Education Act making education a fundamental right.

After years of ignoring the worrying statistics, the Centre has finally woken up. It recently pulled up state governments and demanded reasons for the decline in numbers.

Most large Indian states, including Maharashtra, have seen student numbers come down in Stds I to V, though Assam has been one of the biggest offenders. “This cannot be just a demographic change. In fact, in UP, enrolment has come down in just about seven to eight districts. The state has been alerted and it is investigating what went wrong,” said R Govinda, vice chancellor of the National University of Education Planning and Administration.

Experts at loss over low figure in north

From 2008 to 2010, enrolment in primary classes schools across India has dropped by over 2.6 million, with Uttar Pradesh recording the biggest setback.

Experts are at a loss to accurately explain the drop in enrolment in northern states, where birth rates have essentially remained the same. In some southern states, where population planners had predicted a slowdown in birth rate, primary school enrolments have unsurprisingly declined.

In Delhi, Tamil Nadu and in the northeast of the country, the figures have begun to plateau. In Bihar, Rajasthan, Assam, the struggle stems from ground-level problems like data keeping, children moving out, introduction of new schools and rationalisation of data, said Madhav Chavan, the founder of educational non-profit group Pratham.

Enrolment in primary schools plunges 2.6 million in two years

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