According to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE+) Report 2023-24 of the Ministry of Education (MoE), the total enrolment number of students in 2023-24 has decreased by more than one crore compared to previous years.
Key points of the report
- Decline in enrolment: There has been a decrease in the total enrolment of students to 24.8 crore in the academic year 2023-24 as compared to 25.18 crore in the year 2022-23.
- The enrolment rate declined by more than 6% (about 1.22 crore students) compared to the year 2018-19.
On the basis of gender
- Students: Enrolment is expected to decline by 4.87% in the year 2023-2024, with 12.87 crore students enrolled compared to 13.53 crore in the year 2018-19.
- Girl students: Enrolment of girl students has declined from 12.49 crores in 2018-19 to 11.93 crores in 2023-24, a decrease of 4.48%.
Statewise
- Bihar (a gap of 35.65 lakh students), Uttar Pradesh (a gap of 28.26 lakh students) and Maharashtra (a gap of 18.55 lakh students) saw the highest decline in enrolment compared to the year 2018-2019.
Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+)
- It is a digital application aimed at collecting information from all recognized schools providing formal education from pre-primary to class XII.UDISE+ now serves as the official statistical system of the Ministry of Education and is now operational in all districts of the country.UDISE+ covers over 14.72 lakh schools, 98.08 lakh teachers and 24.80 crore children.
- Launch: It was launched in the year 2018-2019 to speed up data entry, reduce errors, improve data quality and ease its validation.
- Updated UDISE+: It was launched in the year 2022-23 and it collects data on over 60 areas for each student.
- Nodal Ministry: Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education.
- Objective: To use the collected information to optimize planning, resource allocation and assess the implementation and progress of various education-related programmes.
- Data Collection: UDISE+ collects information through an online data collection form (DCF) on parameters ranging from school, infrastructure, teachers, enrolment, exam results, dropouts, etc., spanning 11 sections.
- UDISE+ has the school as the unit of data collection and the district as the unit of data distribution.
- UDISE Code: Schools selected on the platform are provided with a UDISE Code, which acts as a national level unique identifier.
- Unique Educational ID (EID): A separate Unique Educational ID (EID) has been created for each student in the UDISE+ portal, to include every child under the UDISE+ ecosystem.
Work
- Schools Database: Provides a platform to organise and classify all school data across the country and enables real-time exchange of information.
- Better monitoring, measurement and tracking of critical KPIs related to school performance.
- Enables the use of data analytics on school statistics to identify factors influencing school performance.
- Time-series data allows studying the trend over different years and monitoring improvements/developments.
Challenges in India’s education system
- Quality of education: The quality of education is questionable due to outdated teaching methods and inadequate infrastructure.
- Urban-rural disparity: There is disparity in access to quality education between urban and rural areas.
- Rote learning system: Education focuses more on rote learning, not promoting critical thinking and creativity.
- High dropout rates: Many students drop out of education due to financial difficulties, child marriage and lack of interest.
- Lack of infrastructure: Schools in rural areas lack basic facilities such as classrooms, toilets and electricity.
- Lack of funding: Public spending on education is inadequate, leading to a lack of resources for schools and teachers.
- Heavy curriculum: The curriculum is overly rigid and overstuffed, leaving little room for practical skills.
- Technology integration: Digital education is being promoted, but technology access is limited in rural areas.
- Access to Higher Education: The quality of higher education has increased, but still the demand for quality higher education exceeds the supply.