Outbreak may hit India’s poor enrolment numbers

nNEWDELHI:UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said getting students safely back to classrooms must be a top priority of the governments once local transmission of Covid-19 pandemic is under control. He said the world is facing a “generational catastrophe” that could waste untold human potential, undermine decades of progress, and exacerbate entrenched inequalities.

India needs to be extra cautious in preventing its school enrolment rates from falling, particularly because many of those who stop going to school in the country do so because of financial reasons. A drop in school enrolment would not only cost the country in terms of upward mobility in education but also hit the nutrition levels of children who receive free midday meals in schools.

Findings from a National Statistical Office (NSO) survey on social consumption on education, conducted in 2017-18, show that India’s gross enrolment ratio (GER) was 99.2 between primary and middle school education level.

GER is the ratio of the number of students currently enrolled in a particular level of education to the number of persons in the corresponding official age-group. For example, the ratio of 99.2 in primary to middle school level means for every 100 persons in the age group of 6 to 13 years, there are 99.2 students enrolled in classes 1st to 8th.

To be sure, this does not mean nearly everyone in the age group of 6 to 13 is enrolled in schools because some of the students in classes 1st to 8th would be students from other age groups, particularly above the age of 13. The high enrolment ratio at primary to middle level is a promising figure, but it drops to only 78.8 at the secondary and higher secondary level.