Question : Dropout Rates in Government and Private Schools

(a) whether some states have seen a massive dip in the number of students that have enrolled in private schools as compared to pre-pandemic years;
(b) if so, the ways in which Government is trying to deal with the learning loss of this stratum of students;
(c) the dropout rates from Government and private schools in 2019-20 and 2020-21, State-wise;
(d) whether the Government or any other body under its administrative control bothered to gauge the level of the digital divide in India for Government school students, especially in rural areas;
(e) if so, the details thereof;
(f) if not, the reasons that deterred the Government that from carrying out such an exercise;
(g) whether any attempts have been made or planned to gauge the quality of education imparted in the pandemic period; and
(h) if so, the details thereof and if not, reasons therefor?

MINISTER OF EDUCATION

(SHRI DHARMENDRA PRADHAN)

(a): As per Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20 the state wise enrolment of students in Government and Private schools is at Annexure I.
(b): In order to prevent drop outs, lower enrolments and loss of learning, the Ministry of Education has issued guidelines for identification, smooth admission process and continued education of migrant children on 13th July, 2020, inter-alia, requesting the States to identify and enroll all such children without any procedural formalities and maintain a database of children so admitted. Further, to ensure that children have access to education with quality and equity and to
minimize the impact of the pandemic on school education in the country, Ministry of Education has shared guidelines dated 7th January, 2021 with all States which, among others, include identification of out of school children from age 6-18 years, enrolment drives and awareness generation, student support while schools are closed, continued Education for children with Special Needs (CWSN), student support on school reopening and Teacher capacity building. A comprehensive Covid action plan has been shared with the States and UTs on 4th May 2021, outlining the role of local bodies, formation of nodal group at village/town level, conducting door-to-door/helpdesk-based/app based survey to identify out of school children, their mainstreaming and resource sharing.
(c): Dropout rates are computed considering both Government and Private Schools of States/UTs to take care of inter school movements of the students. The state-wise dropout rate for boys and girls at Primary, Upper Primary and Secondary level for 2019-20 is at Annexure II.
(d) to (f): Education being in the concurrent list of the Constitution and schools other than those run / funded by Central Government are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. A sample survey was conducted in the month of July, 2020 for schools of Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS), and Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) by the Department. Subsequently, further surveys were conducted in early 2021 regarding availability of various forms of digital devices with children. NVS has reported 92.95% and KVS has more than 98% of students having full or partial access to some digital device. States/UTs were advised vide letter dated 01.02.2021 to conduct survey of children with access and without access to digital devices. Details of outcome of survey conducted by States/UTs on children without digital devices is at Annexure III.
(g) and (h): The National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) conducts periodic national sample surveys to assess learning achievement of children in Classes – III, V, VIII, and X. The National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2017 was held on 13th November 2017 for assessing the competencies of children at the grade levels III, V and VIII from across 701 districts covering all the 36 States and UTs and covered 22 lakh students from 1.10 lakh schools. NAS (2017) was administered in different subject areas such as Languages, Mathematics, EVS/Science and Social Sciences in the Government and Government aided schools. Similarly, National Achievement Survey for Class X was also conducted throughout the country on February 05, 2018 in government, government aided and private schools. The learning levels of 15 lakh students in 44,304 schools across 610 districts in 34 States and UTs were assessed, in 5 subject areas of English, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and Modern Indian Language (MIL). Further, the National Achievement Survey is undertaken periodically.
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