scorecardresearch
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeIndiaDid Covid lead to more kids dropping out of classes? No, thanks...

Did Covid lead to more kids dropping out of classes? No, thanks to govt schools, finds survey

Highest level of enrolment in 2022 since introduction of RTE, adds Annual Status of Education Report. From 97.2% in 2018, enrolment figure for 6-14 age was up to 98.4% in 2022.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

New Delhi: The closure of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic distress it brought along had given a rise to fears that more children would drop out of school. However, a survey report released shows that is not the case. 

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey 2022 released by Pratham, a non-profit organisation, Wednesday revealed that the opposite has happened. The proportion of children not enrolled in schools has gone down from 2018 to 2022. 

It also says that the proportion of children who shifted from private to government schools during the same period has gone up. 

“Fears had been expressed that economic stress might lead to children dropping out of school but this has not happened. Instead, the already low proportion of not-enrolled children in the 6-14 age group has halved from 2.8 per cent to 1.6 per cent over four years,” reads the report. 

It adds that the proportion of children currently not enrolled in school is the lowest since the Right to Education (RTE) Act came into effect in 2010. 

Putting things in perspective, the report says that the proportion of children not attending school was 2.8 per cent in 2018, but went up to 4.6 per cent between 2018 and 2020. “This almost doubling of out of school numbers, while alarming at first, was seen to be concentrated in the youngest age group of 6-10 years, and could be explained by the fact that many children (in the 6 to 7 age group) were waiting to seek admission when schools reopened,” it explains. 

It further adds that the numbers of non-enrolled children went down again in 2022. “The proportion of those not currently enrolled in the 6 to 14 age group is down to 1.6 per cent — almost half of what was observed in 2018 and the lowest we have seen in the decade since the RTE Act came into effect,” the report notes. 


Also Read: ‘Can’t let kids go astray’ — the selfless women of Bhopal teaching slum kids during lockdowns


School enrolment went up across age groups

The last ASER rural field survey conducted pre-pandemic was in 2018 and it showed that the all-India enrolment figure for the 6-14 age group was 97.2 per cent, the number has now gone up to 98.4 per cent in 2022. 

“This evidence indicates that at least as far as school enrolment is concerned, the pandemic-induced school closures did not lead to widespread dropout for either girls or boys older than ten or even for those older than fourteen. Across all ages, for both boys and girls, the school enrolment has actually gone up from 2018 to 2022,” it reads. 

The report points out that rising enrolment trends can be “seen both as a plus and a minus.” 

“High and steadily rising enrolment means that potentially more students can benefit for longer and sustained periods of time from schooling. Completion of the entire cycle of eight years of schooling for each cohort of 25 million students is no mean achievement in a country of India’s size and diversity.” 

“On the other hand, with more and more students going through the middle school pipeline, attending secondary schools is also causing increased competition for post-secondary opportunities,” the report says. 

The report adds that the secondary schools have not expanded to keep up with the massive numbers that they can get from the middle schoolers and board examinations have prevented students from moving to the next stage. 

“Acute examination stress and anxiety (sometimes ending in suicide), grade inflation in high school leaving examinations, difficulties of gaining admission into college, lack of appropriate jobs for school leavers are all consequences of high enrolment and completion rates,” it explains.

In an article written for the report, Pratham Chief Executive Officer Rukmini Banerjee also points to the fact that along with the increasing overall enrolment in schools, the trend also shows increasing enrolment in government schools. 

For the country as a whole (all-India rural), the percentage of children in the 11 to 14 age group who got enrolled in government schools has risen from 65 per cent in 2018 to 71.7 per cent in 2022, she says.

She adds that the rise in government school enrolment can be attributed to several possible contributing factors, one of them being the financial situation of the family. 

“If family income goes down or becomes more uncertain, it is likely that parents may not be able to afford private school fees. Hence, they are likely to pull their children out of private schools and put them in government schools, where at least until the end of the compulsory stage, education is free (till Grade 8).”   

“A second reason may have to do with the fact that in rural areas, most private schools are of the low cost or budget variety,” she adds. 

(Edited by Geethalakshmi Ramanathan)


Also Read: Fewer kids enrolled in schools at pre-primary, Class 1 levels during pandemic, govt data shows


 

 

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular