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Source: The post is based on the following articles:
a. “Ministry of Education released a detailed Report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22” published in PIB on 3rd November 2022.
b. “Decline in pre-primary enrolments continued in 2021-22, says government report” published in The Hindu on 4th November 2022.
What is the News?
The Ministry of Education has released a detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 on school education of India.
What is UDISE+?
Developed by: Department of School Education & Literacy in the year 2018-19.
Mandate: To collect online data from the schools to overcome the issues related to the erstwhile practice of manual data filling in paper format.
Information collected through UDISE+ is utilized for the planning, optimized resource allocation and implementation of various education-related programs and assessments of progress made.
Data: UDISE+ collects information on parameters ranging from school, Infrastructure, teachers, enrolments, examination results etc.
– In UDISE+ 2021-22, additional data on important indicators viz., digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in school library etc have been collected for the first time to align with the NEP 2020 initiatives.
What are the key findings of UDISE+ 2021-22?
Enrollment: In 2021-22, the total number of students enrolled in school education from primary to higher secondary stood at 25.57 crores as compared to 25.38 crore enrolment in 2020-21 registering an increase of 19.36 lakh enrolments.
– However, the number of children entering pre-primary classes in 2021-2022 saw a further decline, resulting in 30% fewer students in this school section as compared to the pre-COVID period.
– Further, the enrolment in primary classes which include classes 1 to 5, also saw a drop for the first time—falling from 12.20 lakh in 2020-2021 to 12.18 lakh in 2021-2022.
State wise: Uttar Pradesh has witnessed the highest enrollment of students in government schools and recruitment of teachers.
A decline in Schools: For the first time since the pandemic, there was a decline in the number of schools due to closures as well as a lack of teachers.
— There were 20,000 fewer schools in 2021-2022 as the total number of schools dropped from 15.09 lakh to 14.89 lakh. These were primarily schools under “private and other management”.
Computer and Internet Facilities: Computer facilities were available in 44.75% of schools, while Internet access was available only in 33.9% of schools. However, their availability has improved as compared to pre-Covid when only 38.5% of schools had computers and 22.3% had Internet facilities.
Gross Enrollment Ratio(GER): It compares the enrollment in a specific level of education to the population of the corresponding age group.
– GER for the primary section has improved from 101.3% in 2018-2019 to 104.8% in 2021-2022. For secondary classes, it has risen to 79.6% in 2021-22, from 76.9% in 2018-19 and for higher secondary level, it has increased from 50.14% to 57.6%.
Gender Parity Index(GPI) of GER which indicates the representation of girls in school with respect to their population in the corresponding age group was also found to be favourable to girls with a GPI value of 1.
