More boys dropped out of school at the secondary level (class 9 and 10) as well as in primary level (classes 1 to 5) compared to girls, according to the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20 report. However, the number of girls dropping out of school in the upper primary (classes 6 to 8) was higher than that of the boys, the report found. The report noted that the overall dropout rate at the secondary school level in the country is 16.1%, while in the upper primary classes (6 to 8) and the primary level it is 2.6% and 1.5% respectively.
The overall dropout rate for boys in primary classes was 1.7% as against the girls' dropout rate of 1.2%. Similarly, the dropout rate for boys was higher in secondary classes (17%) than girls (15.1%). In upper primary classes, the dropout rate for boys (2.2%) was less than that for girls (3%).
According to the report, nearly 28.4% of students in the country do not transition from the secondary to the senior secondary level.This transition rate (from secondary to senior secondary) was also slightly higher among girls (73.09%) than among boys (70.20%).
The Unified District Information on School Education (UDISE), initiated in 2012-13 by the Ministry of Education by integrating the DISE for elementary education and the SEMIS for secondary education, is one of the largest management information systems on school education. The UDISE+ is an updated version of the UDISE. "With more than 15 lakh schools, nearly 97 lakh teachers and over 26.5 crore students from the pre-primary to the higher secondary level, the Indian school education system is one of the largest in the world," the report said.
The report revealed that there are 17 states and union territories where the dropout rate at the secondary level (classes 9 and 10) is higher than the all-India rate (16.1%), with states like Tripura, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh having a dropout rate of over 25%. Along with Punjab (which has the lowest dropout rate of 1.6%), the states and Union territories with a less than 10% dropout rate are Chandigarh (4.7%), Himachal Pradesh (7.2%), Kerala (7.9%), Manipur (9.2%), Lakshadweep (6.7%), Puducherry (7.9%), Tamil Nadu (9.6%) and Uttarakhand (8.4%). Comparatively, these are also the states and Union territories with the highest promotion rate at the secondary level, with Punjab, Manipur and Kerala having a promotion rate of over 90%.
With PTI inputs
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