Is Maharashtra witnessing a sharp increase in school drop-outs?

The latest Economic Survey of Maharashtra, tabled in the legislature last week threw up an alarming figure of 1.55 lakh kids presumably dropping out of elementary school (Std I-VIII), that too within just a year.
According to the survey, 1,60,16,754 children currently study in elementary schools across the state, as compared to 1,61,72,420 children a year ago. This covers over 1.05 lakh schools and includes both the government-run and private institutions.

This means that over 1.55 lakh kids simply vanished from the school system within a year, which is quite surprising. The survey report was based on the statistics of the Maharashtra Prathmik Shikshan Parishad, a part of the school education department. The survey is quiet on region-wise data, also it does not offer any explanation about the whopping number of "missing kids".

The overall elementary school enrolment saw a rising trend till a few years ago due to a rise in population and literacy level. It gradually became stagnant in the last 4 years, barring a little decline in 2012-13. However, such a sharp decline was observed for the first time. The education department, meanwhile, maintains a mysterious silence over the issue.
There are, however, some theories floating around concerning the missing students. "The sudden decline raises doubts over veracity of the data. Separate figures for public and private schools would have thrown some light, but since they are not available, we can't really conclude anything. The drop is expected only in the government schools due to various reasons," said a principal of the government school.

While some experts also pointed to a scam of bogus students exposed 4 years ago. "Many schools were found to have inflated enrolment to siphon off government grants. Since then, the government is trying to curb bogus enrolment. That might have started showing its impact now," said educationist Dr Milind Wagh.

Advertisement

While school education officials refused to comment on the issue citing the ongoing legislative session, off-record, they attributed the enrolment decline to declining birthrate in the state and the no-fail policy introduced by the Centre a few years ago. An official added that the government introduced a mandatory "saral form" last year, which aimed at tracking down every student. That rationalised the class strength in the government schools.

Incidentally, over 81,000 kids in the state are still "out of schools", as per the government's own survey conducted for the first time last year. The school education department faces a big challenge to bring all of them on roll, in order to comply with the norms of the Right to Education Act, which came into effect 6 years ago.
However, a positive takeaway was that enrolment in the secondary and higher secondary schools (Std IX-XII) has gone up from 61.81 lakh to 64.14 lakh in the same period, stated the survey.

Image Courtesy: DNA India

Advertisement