The Ministry of Education (MoE) has published a comprehensive report on the ‘Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-2022’ on school education in India.
- According to the report, the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) at the primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of education increased in 2021–2022 compared to 2020–21.
GER compares the enrollment in a given educational level to the population in the age group that is most age-appropriate for that level of education.
Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+)
i.In 2018–19, the Department of School Education and Literacy (DOSE&L), MoE, developed the UDISE+ system to collect data from schools online.
- Objective: To overcome the challenges associated with the earlier method of manual data entry on paper.
ii.Improvements have been made to the UDISE+ system, particularly in the areas of data collecting, data mapping, and data verification.
iii.To comply with the National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020) objectives, more data on key indicators, such as digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in school libraries etc., have been collected for the first time in UDISE+ 2021-2022.
Click here to access the UDISE+ 2021-2022 Report
Key Report Findings:
i.The report states that GER in Higher Secondary has improved significantly, rising from 53.8% in 2020–21 to 57.6% in 2021–22.
ii.The total number of students enrolled in primary to higher secondary education in 2021–22 was 25.57 crore, up from 25.38 crore in 2020–21, a 19.36 lakh increase in enrollment.
- Total Scheduled Caste (SC) enrollment climbed to around 4.82 crore (~4.83 crore) in 2021-22, up from 4.78 crore in 2020-21.
- Total Scheduled Tribe (ST) enrollment grew from 2.49 crore in 2020-21 to 2.51 crore in 2021-22.
- Total Other Backward Caste (OBC) students increased from 11.35 crore in 2020–21 to 11.48 crore in 2021–22.
- A total of 22.67 lakh Children with Special Needs (CWSN) are enrolled in schools in 2021–2022, up from 21.91 lakh in 2020–201, indicating a 3.45% rise.
Gender Parity Index (GPI)
The GER Gender Parity Index (GPI) shows that the representation of females in school education corresponds to the representation of girls in the population of the respective age group.
- Over 12.29 crore girls are enrolled in primary to higher secondary schools in 2021-22, a rise of 8.19 lakh over the enrollment of girls in 2020-21.
The GPI value at all levels of school education is one or more, signifying increased participation of girls in school education.
Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR)
i.During 2021-22, 95.07 lakh teachers are engaged in school education, with more than 51% being female teachers.
ii.Furthermore, the Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) in 2021-22 was 26 for primary, 19 for upper primary, 18 for secondary, and 27 for higher secondary.
- In 2018–19, the PTR for primary, upper primary, secondary, and higher secondary was 28, 19, 21, and 30, respectively.
iii.The total number of schools in 2021-22 was 14.89 lakhs, down from 15.09 lakhs in 2020-21.
- The decrease in total schools is primarily due to the closure of private and other management schools, as well as school grouping or clustering by various states.
Recent Related News:
i.According to the annual report of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), India has faced an acute shortage of Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTR) over the last 10 years.
ii.The Ministry of Education (MoE) gave the ratio that Primary School PTR came down to 26.3 in 2020-2021 from 43 in 2010-2011.
About Ministry of Education (MoE):
Union Minister – Dharmendra Pradhan (Rajya Sabha – Madhya Pradesh)
Minister of State (MoS) – Annpurna Devi; Dr. Subhas Sarkar; Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh
