Assam records 42% drop in secondary school dropouts in 10 years, says CM Sarma

Guwahati: Secondary school dropout rates in Assam have declined by 42 per cent over the past decade, said Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Taking to micro-blogging site X on Tuesday, Sarma shared the data on a microblogging platform, stating that school enrolment in the state has reached its highest level to date.

“We are not just building infrastructure, we are building capacity at scale. In the last 10 years, secondary school dropouts are down by 42 per cent as more students in Assam are now in school than ever,” Sarma said.

Calling it a major outcome of the government’s education policies, the chief minister said efforts would continue to eliminate dropouts entirely.

“This is a big win for our education policies, but we will not stop until there are zero dropouts in Assam,” he added.

Earlier, Assam had witnessed a clear improvement in reducing school dropout rates across different levels, as reflected in the 2024–25 Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report. Despite this progress, the state’s dropout rates continue to remain higher than the national average.

At the primary level, Assam’s dropout rate dropped from 6.2 per cent in 2023–24 to 3.8 per cent in 2024–25, moving closer to the national figure of 2.3 per cent. A similar trend was seen at the upper primary stage, where the rate declined from 8.2 per cent to 5 per cent during the same period.

The biggest improvement was recorded at the secondary level. Assam reduced its dropout rate from 25.1 per cent to 17.5 per cent, marking a fall of 7.6 percentage points. However, this is still well above the national secondary average of 8.2 per cent for 2024–25.

Across the country, the UDISE+ data for 2024–25 shows steady improvement at all stages of schooling.

Dropout rates fell from 3.7 per cent to 2.3 per cent at the preparatory stage, from 5.2 per cent to 3.5 per cent at the middle level, and from 10.9 per cent to 8.2 per cent at the secondary stage.

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