Delhi & Punjab show raise in school enrolment, but fall in no’s among other Minorities
A day after Prathams annual status of education report (ASER)
comes a comprehensive report on elementary education by the National University
of Educational Planning and Administration that shows spurt in enrolment, but a
marginal decline among Muslim, SC, ST and OBC students. Across all social
groups, enrolment of girls has stabilized. But the sub-text of rise in overall enrolment
is that it is uneven across states. States like Rajasthan and West Bengal have shown
big decline in enrolment. But, Delhi and Punjab have shown dramatic increase in
enrolment.
Enrolment in primary classes (I-V) has increased to 13.52 crore from 13.34 crore
in 2009-10. However,in Rajasthan it came down to 84.32 lakh from 86.27 lakh (2009-10). On the contrary, in Punjab, it went up to 25.63 lakh from 18.50 lakh (2009-10). In upper primary schools (class VI-VIII), enrolment has gone up to 5.78 crore
from 5.44 crore. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh and Tripura have shown
massive increase. Enrolment of SC students in primary / upper primary classes has
come down marginally to 19.06% from 19.81% (2009-10). Girls form nearly 49% of the
overall SC enrolment. In case of STs enrolment, there is a negligible change of
10.7% from 10.93% (2009-10). But OBC enrolment in primary level has come down to
40.09% from previous years 42.15%.
There is a similar decline in upper primary classes as well. A marginal dip can
be noticed in enrolment of Muslims in primary schools (13.04%) and upper primary
level (11.25%). Confirming the ASER report, percentage of government share to total
schools has come down to 78.15% (2010-11) from 80.37 (2009-10). The report says
that between 2002-03 and 2010-11, 2.05 lakh new government schools have opened,
increasing the density of primary schools per 10sq km to 3.45 from 3.35 (2009-10)
and upper primary schools to 1.63 from 1.5 (2009-10). For the first time, NUEPA
survey also shows that there are more recognized madras’s at 4,473 than 2167 unrecognized
ones.
Courtesy: Time of India
