Identifying steady increase in private school enrolments, Centre asks States to reverse trend
Flagging a 'disturbing trend' of students choosing private schools over government schools in at least 11 States and Union Territories — including Uttarakhand, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh — the Union Ministry of Education (MoE) has asked these States to take 'remedial steps' to reverse the trend.
The issue was pointed out to individual States in Project Approval Board (PAB) meetings held in March and April earlier this year to consider the Annual Work Plan and Budget under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for 2025-26.
In Telangana, for instance, the PAB meeting minutes note that as per Unified District Information System for Eduction plus (UDISE+) 2023-24 data, out of 42,901 schools in the State, 70% (30,022) are government schools and 28.26% (12,126) are unaided schools. 'Total enrolment in government schools is only 38.11% (27.8 lakh) as compared to 60.75% (44.31 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools,' the minutes note.
'Take remedial steps'
MoE has observed that the school enrolment trend during 2018-19 to 2023-24 suggests that, except during 2021-22, when education was disrupted by COVID-19, enrolment in unaided schools is steadily increasing.
According to the minutes of the meetings, School Education Secretary Sanjay Kumar expressed his concerns that in spite of spending a large amount of money, students are moving away from government schools, which is a disturbing trend. He suggested that States should make a sincere analysis of the root cause so as to take remedial steps and reverse this trend.
'Build government school brand'
A trend similar to Telangana has been observed in Uttarakhand, where enrolment in unaided schools has steadily increased except for the COVID-19 period of 2021-22. In Uttarakhand, the minutes note, as per UDISE+ 2023-24, out of 22,551 schools in the state, 71.84% (16, 201) are government schools and 23.29% (5252) are unaided schools. 'However, total enrolment in government schools is only 36.68% (8.7 lakh) as compared to 54.39% (12.90 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools,' the minutes state.
In Tamil Nadu, MoE observed that as per UDISE+ 2023-24, 64% of government schools in the State have 37% enrolment whereas 21% of unaided school have 46% enrolment. 'In this regard, State was urged to build the government school brand so as to increase enrolment and make best use of the available resources,' the minutes state.
In Andhra Pradesh, the UDISE+ 2023-24 data states that, out of 61,373 schools in the State, 45,000 (73.32%) are government schools and 15,232 (24.82%) are unaided schools. 'However, total enrolment in government schools is 46.33% (40.5 lakh) as compared to 52.09% (45.53 lakh) enrolment in unaided schools. Enrolment trend during 2021-22 to 2023-24 suggests that enrolment in unaided schools is steadily increasing,' the minutes state.
Data cleansing exercise
During Maharashtra's PAB meet, when the Union School Education Secretary expressed concerns about the reduction in enrolment in government and aided schools, from over 1.63 crore students in 2018-19 to a little over 1.50 crore in 2023-24, the State's Principal Secretary for Education & Sports attributed the trend to a data cleansing excercise, using Aadhaar verification.
Kerala's Principal Secretary for Education said a similar exercise had been done there as well, when concerns were raised about the reduction of students in government and aided schools, from close to 46.37 lakh in 2022-23 to 45.50 lakh in 2023-24. 'Apart from this, the State (Kerala) is also making APAAR IDs in order to validate enrolment details,' the minutes noted.
A similar trend was also seen in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Delhi, Puducherry, and Ladakh, according to the meeting minutes.
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