The Decline in School Admissions: School Enrollment Drops by 37 Lakh in 2023-24

The Decline in School Admissions: As per the Ministry of Education’s Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) report, there is a reduction in the number of school enrolments by 37 lakh for the year 2023-24. According to the data the enrolment number was 25.17 crore in 2022-23 and in 2023-2024 the number of students data enrolled was 24.80 crore.

The number of female students decreased by 16 lakh and the number of male students dropped by 21 lakh. About 20% of the total enrollment consists of minority students. Among the minorities 79.6% were Muslim, 10% Christians, 6.9% Sikh, 2.2% Buddhists, 1.3% Jains, and 0.1 per cent Parsis.

Of students who have registered at the national level 26.9% of students were from the general category, 18% belonged to the scheduled caste, 9.9% from the scheduled tribe, and 45.2% were from the other backward classes.

The data was collected through the voluntary submission of Aadhaar numbers, which helped to find fake students and the confirmed advantages went to the right students. Officials explained that this process showed real changes as compared to previous years, as it involved creating a different and separate student database, making it different and not comparable to 2021-22 or previous years.

As per the data, the availability of schools, students, and teachers who are enrolled in various states is also different. “In states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan” the percentage of schools available is more than the percentage of enrolled students. This means that many schools are not being fully used.

On the other side states like Telangana, Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujrat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and Bihar, the percentage of available schools is majorly less as compared to enrolled students, which shows better utilization of infrastructure.