Nagaland sees decrease in student enrolment; improvement at national level

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Nov. 4 (EMN): Nagaland state saw a decrease in the enrolment of students during the academic year 2021-22, registering a total of 44, 3796 students being enrolled at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education, compared to 45, 0098 in the year 2020-21, according to the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) report.

Out of the total students enrolled during 2021-22 in 2718 government and private schools in the state, as many as 2,21,287 were girls and 2,22,509 boys.

However, a detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 on school education of India (nationwide) showed improvement in the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) during the same period at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education, compared to 2020-21.

According to the Ministry of Education report for UDISE+ on school education of India, the number of students enrolled from primary to higher secondary during 2021-22 stood at 25.57 crore compared to 25.38 crore during 2020-21, registering an increase of 19.36 lakh students.

The data showed 8.19 lakh new girl students enrolling during 2021-22 across the country, registering an overall enrollment of 12.29 crore girls from primary to higher secondary level. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) of GER shows the representation of females in school education is in line with representation of girls in population of corresponding age group.

The report also showed an increase in the number of students enrolled under SC, ST, OBC and Children with Special Needs (CWSN) during 2021-22.

The number of SC student enrolment increased to 4.82 crore during 2021-22 against 4.78 crore in 2020-21, while ST student enrolment increased from 2.49 crore to 2.51 crore and OBC student enrolment increased from 11.35 crore to 11.48 crore during the same period.

As for the enrolment of CWSN during 2021-22, the number stands at 22.67 lakh compared to 21.91 lakh in 2020-21, showing an improvement of 3.45%.

The GER, which measures the general level of participation, improved during 2021-22 at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education over the previous academic year. Notably, GER in higher secondary had made a significant improvement from 53.8% in 2021-21 to 57.6% in 2021-22, according to the report.

Pupil Teacher Ratio

The data showed that a total of 95.07 lakh teachers were engaged in school education across the country during 2021-22, out of which more than 51% were female teachers.

Further, in 2021-22, the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) stood at 26 for primary, 19 for upper primary, 18 for secondary, and 27 for higher secondary, showing improvement since 2018-19. The PTR for primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary was 28, 19, 21, and 30 respectively during 2018-19.

It was also mentioned that the total number of schools in India during 2021-22 stood at 14.89 lakh, compared to 15.09 lakh in 2020-21. The decline in the number of schools is mainly due to closure of private and other management schools and grouping/ clustering of schools by various states during the period, according to the report.