Overall enrolment figures increase despite school closures during Covid pandemic – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Despite school closures during the pandemic, overall enrolment figures have increased from 97.2% in 2018 to 98.4% in 2022. Big turnaround during this period is the rebound of enrolment in government schools. The government school enrolment in this age group which saw a steady decline from 2006 to 2014 to record 64.9% and remained around that till 2018. In 2018 it increased to 65.6% and thereafter reached 72.9% in 2022. This is visible in all States/ UTs in the country.
Another improvement marker highlighted in the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022 released on Wednesday is the lowest ever rate for the proportion of girls out of school – it came down to 2% from that of 4.1% in 2018 and 10.3% in 2006. This is even more stark as nationally now a lesser number of older girls in the 15 to 16 age group are out of school. Cause of concern however are the three States – Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh which continue to have more than 10% of these older age group girls out of schools. The annual status of education in rural India also highlighted that now almost one-third of the students from Classes I to VIII are now taking paid private tuitions.
ASER 2022 returned after a gap of four years, reaching 616 rural districts. This year’s data comes after schools reopened after prolonged closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest study surveyed a total of 19,060 villages in rural India, which include 3,74,544 households and 6,99,597 children in the age group 3 to 16.
Overall enrolment rate for the 6 to 14 age group has sustained above 95% for the past 15 years. The proportion of children (age 6 to 14) enrolled in government school increased sharply from 65.6% in 2018 to 72.9% in 2022. Across rural India, the proportion of 3-year-olds enrolled in some form of early childhood education stands at 78.3% in 2022, an increase of 7.1 percentage points over 2018 levels. There is a substantial shift in enrolment patterns of young children in the age group 3-5 years who have moved into the ICDS (anganwadi) system from other forms of pre-school and school provision. In 2022, 66.8% of 3-year-olds were enrolled in Anganwadi Centres as compared to 57.1% in 2018. Among 4-year-olds, Anganwadi enrolment has increased from 50.5% (2018) to 61.2% (2022).
The report also observed that the proportion of government schools with less than 60 students enrolled has increased every year over the last decade. Nationally, this figure was 17.3% in 2010, 24% in 2014, 29.4% in 2018, and stands at 29.9% in 2022. The states with the highest proportion of small schools in 2022 include Himachal Pradesh (81.4%) and Uttarakhand (74%). However, some states show a decrease in the fraction of small schools, such as Uttar Pradesh (from 10.4% in 2018 to 7.9% in 2022) and Kerala (from 24.1% in 2018 to 16.2% in 2022).
ASER also highlighted that the proportion of students attending private tuition classes after school has increased by more than four percentage points over the pre-pandemic levels across the country. The increase in certain states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand is upto eight percentage points.
The report pointed out that over the past decade, rural India has seen small, steady increases in the proportion of children in class I to VIII, taking paid private tuition classes. “Between 2018 and 2022 this proportion increased further, among students in both government and private schools. Nationally, the proportion of children in Class I to VIII taking paid private tuition classes increased from 26.4% in 2018 to 30.5% in 2022. In Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand, the proportion of children taking paid private tuition increased by 8 percentage points or more over 2018 levels,” the report said.
“Tutoring seems to have been a tradition in several states such as West Bengal and Bihar, where the proportion of children going to private schools was low and nearly 70 per cent children were going to tutors. Large numbers of young people in villages earned a living by tutoring children in these states. It appears that in the post-pandemic period the practice of private tutoring may spread and grow in other states as young educated people prepare for, and wait for jobs,” it added.