Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: Following a directive from Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Department of School Education has written a letter to the Directorate of Secondary Education, Assam, seeking district-wise details of the standalone ME (Middle English) schools in the state. The exercise, according to the letter, is to delve deep into the causes of the high dropout rate of children after Class VIII and increase the access of students to high schools.
According to the letter, the School Education Department sought district-wise details of standalone ME schools in the state—enrollment of students, teachers’ strength of each ME of the standalone school, school infrastructure, availability of additional classrooms, names of the nearest high schools, and their distances from the ME schools, etc. The department wants the directorate to submit the information sought by March 1, 2025.
According to UDISE (Unified District Information System for Education) 2022-23, the average annual dropout rate in the lower primary in the state during 2022-23 was 8.49 percent against 6.02 percent in 2021-22, 4.3 percent in 2019-20, and 3.1 percent in 2018-19. Likewise, at the upper primary level, the dropout rate was 10.33 percent in 2022-23, which was 8.81 percent in 2021-22 and 4.9 percent in 2020-21. The dropout rate registered the highest at 22.52 percent in South Salmara, followed by 12.47 percent in Nalbari District in the Lower Primary level, while the lowest was 4.02 percent in the Sivasagar district.
Similarly, in the upper primary level, this rate is highest at 17.15 in Karimganj and the lowest at 4.03 percent in the Sivasagar district during the period 2022-23. The transition rate from primary to upper primary in the state is 89.70 percent.
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