STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: School dropout, both at the primary and secondary levels, continues to be a blot in the education sector in Assam. The school dropout rate in the state is above the national level.
The February 2023 report of the Ministry of Education (Department of School Education and Literacy) has revealed this. The school dropout rate in the state is much higher than the national average at the secondary level.
According to the statistics of the Department of School Education and Literacy, the school dropout rates at the secondary level in Assam in the five financial years from 2017–18 to 2021–22 were higher than the national average. The school dropout rate at the secondary level in the state was 33.7 (topping the list in the country) in 2017-18 as compared to the national average of 18.9. The school dropout rates at the secondary level in the state in the subsequent four financial years were 31.5 as compared to the national average of 17.9 in 2018–19, 32.3 as compared to the national average of 16.1 in 2019–20, 30.3 as compared to the national average of 14 in 2020–21, and 20.3 as compared to the national average of 12.6 in 2021–22.
At the primary level, the dropout rate in the state was 10.1 (the highest in the country) as compared to 3.5 in the national average in 2017–18, 3.1 as compared to 4.5 in the national average in 2018–19, 4.3 as compared to 1.5 in the national average in 2019–20, 3.3 as compared to 0.8 in the national average in 2020–21, and 6 as compared to 1.5 in the national average in 2021–22. The dropout rate at the primary stage in Assam was below the national average only in 2019–20.
The Education Department in the state needs to find out the reasons for such a high shool dropout rates in the state and take corrective measures.
The Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, has developed a unified district information system for Education Plus (UDISE+) to record data on indicators of school education provided by all the states and union territories.
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