There has been a steady decline in the school dropout rate and an increase in enrollment in both school and higher education, the Economic Survey for 2022-23 tabled in Parliament on Tuesday said.
The survey, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, said that gender equality has also improved in this financial year.
“The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) in primary-enrollment in classes 1 to 5 as a percentage of the population in the age group of six to 10 years for girls as well as boys has improved during the financial year (FY),” .
This reform has “reversed the declining trend between FY-17 and FY-19”, it said, adding that “GER (as a percentage of the population aged 11-13 years) in the upper-primary class 6 to 8) ), which was stable between FY-17 and FY-19, improved in FY-22”.
The Economic Survey 2022-23 states that the GER of girls in the respective age groups at the primary and upper-primary levels is better than that of boys.
“In FY-22, school enrollment stood at 26.5 crore children, with an additional 19.4 lakh children enrolled at the primary to higher-secondary levels,” it said.
The survey states that the total enrollment of children with special needs (CWSN) in FY-22 is 22.7 lakh as compared to 21.9 lakh in FY-21, which is an increase of 3.3 per cent.
“Except for the pre-primary level, there has been an increase in enrollment at all levels – primary, upper-primary, secondary and higher-secondary. At the pre-primary level, enrollment declined from 1.1 crore in FY-21 to one crore in FY-22,” it said.
“During the year, about one crore children were enrolled in pre-primary, 12.2 crore in primary, 6.7 crore in upper primary, 3.9 crore in secondary and 2.9 crore in higher secondary,” it said. Girls, at all levels have seen a steady decline in recent years.
The survey noted that the availability of teachers as measured by the student-teacher ratio, an indicator that is inversely related to improvements in the quality of education, improved consistently at all levels from FY13 to FY22.
From FY-13 to FY-22, it has improved from 34.0 to 26.2 at primary level, from 23 to 19.6 at upper-primary level, from 30.0 to 17.6 at secondary level and from 39.0 to 27.1 at higher-secondary level. ,
The survey states that improving the number of schools, availability of teachers and facilities in schools are expected to help improve enrollment and reduce dropouts.
“The total enrollment in higher education has increased from 3.9 crore in FY-20 to about 4.1 crore in FY-21. From FY-15, the enrollment has increased by about 72 lakh (21 per cent). Female enrollment has increased from 1.9 crore in FY-20 to two crore in FY-21,” it said.
“Enrolment in distance education is 45.7 lakh (with 20.9 lakh women), an increase of about seven per cent from FY-20 and 20 per cent from FY-15. The GER in higher education, based on 2011 population estimates (revised), was recorded at 27.3 per cent in FY-21, which is an improvement from 25.6 in FY-20.
As per the survey, the GER for males increased from 24.8 in FY-20 to 26.7 in FY-21, while the GER for females also showed improvement from 26.4 to 27.9 during the same period.
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