Student enrolment on decline in govt schools in Jammu and Kashmir

In one year enrolments drop by 1.75 lakh

Despite government’s claims of organising drives in villages and towns to increase enrolments in schools, the number of students in the government elementary schools in Jammu and Kashmir has decreased by 1.75 lakh in a year.

According to a Project Approval Board (PAB) meeting chaired by Secretary Education and Literacy in the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in June, J&K School Education department has fared poorly on retention rate at primary, upper primary and secondary-level classes.

The PAB meeting “Samagra Shiksha” was convened to consider the annual work plan and budget (AWP&B) 202O-21 for Jammu and Kashmir. As per the minutes of the meeting, the total enrollment decline across calsses is nearly 1.75 lakh in 2019-20. “The number of out of school children was just 19,000 in 2017-18.”

Besides poor enrolments, the retention rate in government schools is also low with only 60% at elementary level and 50% at secondary level.

The government schools, particularly up to elementary level, are witnessing downfall in enrolment mainly due to lack of basic facilities in the schools for which the department gets separate grants from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) every year.

The MHRD has stated that the annual average dropout rate of Muslim students in Jammu and Kashmir is high at all levels (elementary and secondary). “Annual average dropout rate of Muslim students is 14.30% at primary level, 13.10% at upper primary, 23.70% at secondary level and 26% at higher-secondary level,” the official document reads.

There are also government schools across Jammu and Kashmir that have zero student population.

A senior officer in Jammu and Kashmir School Education Department on anonymity said that the Union government may have made the right to education a fundamental right by bringing into force the Right To Education (RTE) Act of 2009, “but government schools are lagging far behind in providing quality education.”

“There is accountability and responsibility in private schools. People pay lakhs as admission fee and monthly fee to private schools, knowing their children will get quality education there as opposed to government schools, where the salary of teachers is huge, but there are few students,” he said.

“The government of India is allocating thousands of crores of rupees for the improvement of education in the country but everything is going in vain. No one is bothered about decreasing student enrolment in government schools,” he rued.

In most of the private schools across Jammu and Kashmir, the salary of teachers is far less than what the government pays its teachers. Those teaching at private schools earn between Rs 4,000 to Rs 18,000 per month at the senior level. Apart from few, all other government schools show low or moderate academic achievement in the board exams.