Projection & Trends of School Enrolment by 2025 (NCERT, New Delhi, August 2022)

It is heartening to observe that Vishal Dayaghan Pajankar & Sridhar Srivastava of the Education Survey Division of the NCERT, New Delhi has undertaken a Study on the Projection and Trends of School Enrolment by 2025 digital report of which was released on August 2022 by Director, NCERT, New Delhi. The study was approved by the Programme Advisory Committee of NCERT and had the following objectives: (i) To estimate & project school enrolment of children up to 2025; (ii) To find the trends of enrolment for the next nine years; and (iii) To provide the information about enrolment and future trends of enrolment for planning and policymaking. Based on the Advisory Committee recommendations, the study has rightly used Reconstructive Cohort Method to project the enrolment for Classes I to X at the state level, gender as well as disadvantage group-wise. This study is considered important and timely undertaken for which the authors need to be congratulated.   Read my observations....                                         Continue reading...

National Achievement Survey (NAS 21): Results Released (25th May 2022)

In response to demand of researchers, Ministry of Education recently announced that it will soon conduct second National Achievement Survey (NAS) which shall  cover both the Private as well as Government schools which is a step in the right direction. Education For All in India wholeheartedly welcomed the statement which would be conducted by the  National Council of Educational Research and Training. The last such survey was conducted  on 13th November 2017 for classes III, V and VIII and for Class X in 2018. 

The Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education has released the report on National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021, held on 12.11.2021. Approx. 34 lakh students from government, government-aided and private schools participated in this survey. The report is available on: http://nas.gov.in

• National Achievement Survey 2021, National Report, Grades 3, 5, 8, and 10
• National Achievement Survey 2021, State Report, Grades 3, 5, 8, and 10
• National Achievement Survey 2021, District Report, Grades 3, 5, 8, and 10

National, state and district report cards are made available for Class 3, 5, 8 and 10 in language, Social Science, science and mathematics which is not an easy task to analyse.

• Report cards reveals that many states has lower average marks in 2021 than in 2017, true for all the subjects.
• 1,18,274 schools, 5,26,824 teachers and 34,01,158 students participated in NAS 21 across grades 3, 5,8 and 10.
• NAS was conducted on 12 November 2021 across the Country.
• Out of scaled scores of 500, class 3 has an average score of 323 in language, 306 in mathematics and 307 in EVS
• Out of scaled scores of 500, class 3 has an average score of 323 in language, 306 in mathematics and 307 in EVS
• Out of scaled scores of 500, class 8 has an average score of 302 in language, 255 in mathematics, 250 in science and 255 in social science.
• Out of scaled scores of 500, class 10 has an average score of 260 in MIL, 220 in mathematics, 206 in science, 231 in social science and 277 in English.
• Many states have lower average scores than the overall average scores
• 38 percent students faced difficulty in learning at home during COVID, 78 percent it was burdensome, lot of assignments.
• 24 percent sample students didn’t have digital device at home, 80 percent found learning better in school with peers help.
• Average achievement score in Class 3 in mathematics is 306. In Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, UP, UKD, the same is significantly below that of the overall achievement score.
• Average achievement score in Class 5 in mathematics is 284. In Bihar, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, UP, UKD etc, the same is significantly below that of the overall achievement score. Against which, Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, MP, Punjab, Rajasthan, WB etc have significantly above the overall achievement score.
• Average achievement score in Class 8 in mathematics is 255. In Andhra, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, UP, UKD, the same is significantly below than the overall achievement score. Against which, Bihar, Chandigarh, Haryana, MP, Punjab, Rajasthan etc have significantly above the overall achievement score.
• Average achievement score in Class 8 in mathematics is 255. In Andhra, Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, UP, UKD, the same is significantly below than the overall achievement score. Against which, Bihar, Chandigarh, Haryana, MP, Punjab, Rajasthan etc have scores significantly above the overall achievement score.

More about NAS...

National Achievement Survey

Enrolment Projections in School Education in India: Has it become the History?

                                                           Prof. Arun C Mehta

Formerly Professor & Head of EMIS Department
NIEPA, New Delhi

 
In the early 1980s, the focus of plan formulation for school education in India was on scenario building and enrolment projections. It was a practice to formulate both the annual as well as five-year plans under the aegis of the Planning Commission which was later abandoned in 2014 when the same was replaced by the NITI Aayog which was also the end of formulating Five Year Plans; 12^th Five Year Plan (2012 to 2017) was the last under which Elementary Education Plan was lastly formulated. The approved plans were used to be treated seriously for which strategies were used to be adapted to implement the same. 

Pre-appraisal of plans with the Planning Commission Officers and state-level teams used to have intense discussion many times the same was used to be attended by state Chief Ministers. But still, at that time only state-specific plans used to be formulated and there was no emphasis on district-specific educational plans mainly because data below the state level was not generally available. Even educational data at the state level used to have had a time-lag of 7 to 8 years; thus indicating that the year 2000 annual plans were formulated based on data of 1993/94; thus plans were based on outdated data because of which enrolment projections and scenario building used to be in the focus. 

Renowned researchers, like Prof. M. K. Premi, Dr. A. B. L. Srivastava, Prof. Braham Prakash, etc, at that time, attempted enrolment projections but most of these exercises were still confined only to the state level.  The work of these researchers was later carried forward by researchers at NIEPA, New Delhi which includes Arun C Mehta. In addition, the Education Policy and Data Centre and Educational Survey Department of NCERT, New Delhi (Vishal D Pajankar and Sridhar Srivastava, 2019) also recently attempted enrolment projections and. methodology development.

Before the launch of the nationwide World Bank assisted District Primary Education Project (DPEP) in 1994-95; states have had the experience of UNICEF assisted Bihar Education Project (BEP),  SIDA assisted Lok Jumbish Project, IDA assisted Basic Education Project in Uttar Pradesh, ODA assisted Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project, SIDA assisted  Shiksha Karmi Project and  Dutch assisted Mahila Samkhya programmes. 

Bihar Education Project was one of the early programmes which had provision of disaggregated target setting and enrolment projections with the emphasis on strengthening of EMIS in its district plans in seven-phase one districts. It was the DPEP that again emphasized disaggregated target setting in its district plan formulation The genesis of DPEP was the above mentioned state-specific experiments which had the following objectives: i) to provide access to all children to primary education; ii) to reduce overall dropouts at the primary level; iii) to increase achievement levels, and iv) to reduce disparities of all types. 

DPEP was the first mega programme launched as a centrally sponsored scheme that could reach 272 districts spread over 18 states which had the focus on (i) Local area planning; (ii) Greater rigour and infusion of professional inputs in planning and appraisal (iii) More focussed targeting in the selected districts, and (iv) More focussed coverage on primary stage with stress on education for girls and socially disadvantaged groups.

The whole exercise of district plan formulation under the DPEP was rigorous which had an emphasis on data analysis, projection of enrolment, and construction of indicators at the disaggregated levels and its implications for universalisation of primary education for which several capacity building programmes were conducted by the national level institutions across the country which were reflected in the district plans formulated later. It was mandatory to have set the target on enrolment ratio, retention rate as well as dropout rate for which intensive enrolment projections were mandatory which was part of the district plans. In the process of target setting, district planning teams come across a set of indicators that were never used before at that level. Special planning modules including one on enrolment and population projections were developed. 

Incidentally, even though many nation-wide programmes were initiated later but neither new planning modules were developed nor the existing modules were modified to meet the requirement of these programmes. During the target setting exercise through the enrolment projections, both the state as well district planning teams come across indicators, such as intake or admission rate, grade-to-grade dropout, promotion and repetition rate, grade ratio, enrolment-based indicators, and a host of other indicators. DPEP was discontinued in the year 2000 before it could fully achieve its objectives. Following an article by Arun C Mehta on enrolment projections at the national level, the World Bank initiated a project on state-specific enrolment projections perhaps that was the last of such exercise which were not seen even the country had many unfinished tasks and had launched many more mega programmes, such as Sarva Shiksha Abhivan & RMSA programmes. 

One of the other important benefits of DPEP was that it initiated the strengthening of EMIS in DPEP districts and states which was later become the basis of launching DISE. Nobody thought DISE would later attain such levels. With almost the same objectives but extended to the entire elementary level of education and across the country, another nationwide programme in the name of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan was launched as a centrally sponsored scheme in 2000-01 which also initially had provision for disaggregated target-setting but couldn’t maintain the legacy which it had inherited from the DPEP programme with the following objectives:   (i) All children in school by 2003; (ii) All children complete five years of primary schooling by 2007; (iii) All children complete eight years of schooling by 2010; (iv) Focus on elementary education of satisfactory quality; (v) Bridge all gender and social category gaps at primary stage by 2007 and at elementary education level by 2010; and (vi) Universal retention by 2010.

Except during the initial period of SSA that too only in a few selected districts, the tempo of formulating district plans in a decentralized model with emphasis on target setting and enrolment projections couldn’t be maintained. In the later period of SSA, it lost its focus and the whole exercise becomes more or less a monotonic exercise. During the later years, district plans used to develop even at the state level thus losing the focus in toto. 

Even after almost two decades of SSA, nobody knows how much of the SSA objectives have been achieved and what is the extent of the unfinished task. One of the significant achievements of SSA was a significant improvement in EMIS  through the DISE/UDISE which has completely eradicated time-lag in the availability of educational statistics across the country and liberalization of educational data which was made available to users in a hassle-free manner at all disaggregated levels, such as from school to cluster, block, district as well as at the state and the national level. What is more, than that the state and the district's plans started developing by using the current years' data in formulating plans but the same has had no rigor for intensive data analysis and target setting?  Not a single district and state could attempt target setting and enrolment projections in the later years of SSA. Enacting the Right of Education in 2009 was another important activity that took place during the SSA period because of which the emphasis on target setting on certain parameters further completely derailed. 

To tackle out-of-school children, the RTE Act advocates identification of the same and provides them special training duration of which vary from 3 months to two years and then make them sit in the age-appropriate grade because of which target setting in general and focus on enrolment projections completely lost. Since then there is no target date to achieve the goal of school education in India, there are no targeted dropout, retention, and transition rates all of which are termed important if the goal of universalization is to be attained. During the SSA, another important programme in the name of RMSA was launched in 2007-08 which had very limited scope for enrolment projections and target setting; hardly any state could have had seen undertaking projections exercise. The complete lack of focus on target setting continued till the end of SSA in 2018-19, the year in which both the SSA and RMSA were merged into one programme, i.e. Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan guidelines of which even do not mention target setting. No significant methodology change has been observed in Samgara Shiksha from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan apart addition of a few new components, such as pre-school education because of NEP 2020. Plans are still being formulated based on a set of EXCEL Sheets where there is no scope for target setting and enrolment projections.

Even after three complete years of Samagra Shiksha, the framework for the implementation scheme for school education is still in draft form. A cursory look at the document however reveals that under the results framework document for planning and monitoring outcomes of the Samagra Shiksha, baseline (2016-17) as well cumulative target values for three years, namely 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20 were supposed to be provided under the Project Development Objective on a host of parameters including enrolment, GER/NER, and transition rate separately in case of elementary and secondary & higher education levels without details as to how these values will arrive and what methodology is to be adapted for the same. One gets the impression that the previously used results framework of SSA and RMSA have been too adapted in Samagra Shiksha. It would be of interest to know how many states have been imparted training to fix these values and what is the outcome of the values fixed in terms of achievement as the first two years of the implementation have already been over.

It may be further observed that school enrolment has declined significantly in the recent past which is truer for elementary level of education which had shown a decline of 6.82 million (primary, 5.2 million) during the years 2015-16 to 2016-17 majority of which was experienced in the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Further, the Bihar government admitted in the state assembly that the enrolment of students in the government and government-aided schools had declined by 4 million in 2018-19 compared to 2014-15 (HT March 2, 2021).  The Economic Survey 2018-19 placed in the parliament stated that a significant decline in enrolment in elementary schools over the next two decades and advised states to merge schools than build up new ones. UNESCO recently released a projection covering 180 countries, estimating that 24 million children may not return to education in 2020 due to the pandemic including India (MINT August 2020). Significant decline in enrolment reiterated the importance of target setting and significance of enrolment projections in plan formulation in general and under Samagra Shiksha in particular. National level institutions, such as NIEPA must rejuvenate planning teams and initiate capacity-building programmes on plan formulation with emphasis on projections and target setting for both the district, as well as state planning teams.

 Enrolment Projections in School Education in India Has it become the History (PDF)

Observations on Samagra Shiksha

Free and compulsory education to all children up to the age of fourteen is the constitutional commitment in India. Despite spectacular quantitative expansion in every sphere of elementary education, the goal to achieve universal enrolment is still a far distant dream in a real sense.  While adopting the constitution in 1950, the goal of UEE was to be achieved in ten years i.e. 1960.  Keeping in view the educational facilities available in the country at that time, the goal of UEE was far too ambitious to achieve in a short span of ten years.  Hence, the target date was revised several times.  During the decade 1991-2001, a number of Centrally Sponsored Schemes, as well as, new programmes and projects were initiated across the country.  The Operation Blackboard scheme initiated in 1987 also got momentum during this period so as the large number of District Institutes of Educational Training (DIETs) established across the country. 

The Andhra Pradesh Primary Education Project, Bihar Education Project, UP Basic Education Project, Lok Jumbish and Shiksha Karmi projects of Rajasthan and District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) were the main state-specific programmes initiated during 1991-2001. The mid-day meal scheme was also initiated during this period. Primary education remained the focus of all these programmes. The DPEP which came to an end in 2000 was implemented in 272 districts across 18 states. 

The most recent ambitious programme, namely Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was launched by the Government of India in 2001envisaged covering all non-DPEP districts before the end of the Ninth Five-Year Plan with a focus on the entire elementary level of education. 

Initially, the focus of SSA was to further strengthen infrastructure in schools which was later shifted initially to increase enrolment (in terms of enrolment ratio, drop-out, and transition rate) and later focused more on improving quality of education. Under the aegis of SSA, a number of programmes were launched and several studies were conducted (mostly by the Technical Support Group of SSA) in the beginning but later the momentum couldn’t be maintained. One of the significant visible achievements of SSA was strengthening the Educational Management Information System through DISE/U-DISE initiatives which had later acquired the status of the Official Statistics in 2012-13.

Initially, the aim of SSA was to bring all the out-of-school, never enrolled, and dropped-out children back to school by 2003, achieve UPE by 2007, and UEE with satisfactorily quality of education by 2010 but nobody knows what had happened to all these targets. Targets of 2003, 2005, and 2010 show national commitment but no state-specific targets were set down in the process of which all states including Kerala and Bihar was given the same year to achieve the objectives of SSA. Neither district-specific target was set down.

A thorough diagnosis exercise would have revel how many years a state and district would take to achieve the goal of UPE and UEE but the momentum of data analysis couldn’t be maintained barring an initial period of SSA. Later the concept of participatory planning lost focus so as the development of district plans in a decentralized mode. 

A number of capacity building programmes with an emphasis on the data analysis and use of indicators in planning were conducted across the county.  Barring the initial period, later district plans started formulating at the State level and planning teams remained on paper.  In most cases, Block development plans as envisaged in SSA couldn’t be developed so as the School Development plans based on which District plans were envisaged to be developed. 

In 2007, SSA extended to the secondary level of education in the form of RMSA. In 2009, Right to Education was enacted ensuring that every child of age 6 to 14 years is enrolled because of which there is no target year by which UPE and UEE are to be achieved which is continued. The local authorities are supposed to identify out-of-school children at the beginning of an academic year which is then to provide special training of 2 months to 3 years and then to make them sit in the age-appropriate class. No data is available as to how many such students were made to sit in a class and how many of them continued and have completed Grade V and VIII. Change in the planning methodology because RTE is also not available in the public domain but district plans continued to be developed based on the EXCEL Tables.

SSA inherited a legacy of rich experience of DPEP but it couldn’t sustain many of the best practices of the DPEP and it had become a routine and mechanical exercise year after year and lost focus. During the entire period of SSA, 2001 to 2018, it was never externally reviewed barring annual review by the Joint Review Mission even though there was a change in the federal government.   For about 15 years, SSA plans were being formulated, appraised, approved and money released based on the 50+ Excel Tables provided by the Technical Support Group of SSA.  

In the initial years of SSA, the process of plan formulation was a bit scientific but later everything gained over the previous such programmes lost and plans lack academic flavour.  NIEPA is said to be known as an apex body in the areas of capacity building and planning and had played an important role during DPEP implementation. But so far as the SSA is concerned its planning methodology, barring an initial period is not in the public domain.
It never took up the issue of plans being formulated based on EXCEL Sheets with the Ministry of HRD in the absence of which the outcome of the capacity building programmes which it had conducted is not reflected in the plans being formulated. But such programmes conducted by the NIEPA have contributed immensely to developing an understanding of both the district and state-level officers in the areas of MIS, indicators of educational development, planning methodology, and data analysis which is true for both SSA and RMSA. In each state, one person well versed engaged in planning over years and have a good understanding of SSA and RMSA parameters, use of indicators, and its implication for planning can be identified but such officers are not large in number. 

NIEPA faculty played important role at the beginning of SSA and conducted a good number of programmes on planning methodology and have also played important role in Appraisal Missions constituted by the Ministry but this exercise which was found useful by both the members of appraisal as well states discontinued for unknown reasons; instead, the concept of internal appraisal was introduced which was never found effective.  Whatever one wants to achieve can only be achieved through the active participation of teachers for which provision of in-service was made in SSA. During SSA the focus of capacity building of teachers was transferred from DIET to Block Resource Centres across the County. By and large, DIET continues to engage in B.Ed and Diploma programmes and few programmes it used to conduct were also decided at the State level (generally SCERT) which is generally not found need-based and as per the requirement of teachers but the same was an easy tool to spend a good amount of money allotted. The quality of school education was also badly reflected by the provisions of RTE, namely no detention and no exam policy at the elementary level of education which resulted in demand by the states to scrap the same which was later approved by the parliament through amendment in the Constitution. Even though SSA was extended to the Secondary level through RMSA but the same was limited only to Government schools and even aided schools were not covered. 

One of the other limitations of the programme was the issue of prioritization because of which during the initial period of SSA schools were opened where they were not viable to be opened which were later merged with other schools or a few of them were even closed down. This was also true for the construction of additional classrooms and other facilities. Despite all these limitations, significant progress was made during the SSA period but the same was focused more on to further strengthen infrastructure in schools or on input variables. At the end of SSA, the following set of data reveals the progress made and the size of the unfinished task.

Status of School Education: Year 2017-18

·       Number of Schools: 15,58,903

·       Percentage of Private Schools: 20.67%

·       Total Teachers, Grades I to XII: 92,47,361

·       Percentage of Trained Teachers : 81.39%

·       Percentage of Single-Teacher Schools (Government): 7.82%

·       Percentage of Single-Classroom Schools (Government): 3.99%

·       Percentage of Schools with Computer(s): 29.57%

·       Percentage of Schools with Functional Computer(s): 13.07%

·       Percentage of Schools with Electricity: 63.14%

·       Percentage of Schools with Internet Connection: 13.61%

·       Total I to XII Enrolment: 25,09,89,193

·       Enrolment in Grades I to V & NER: 12,23,78,400, 82.53%

·       Enrolment in Grades VI to VII & NER: 6,54,48,222, 72.62%

·       Enrolment in Grades I to VII & NER: 18,78,26,622, 85.18%

·       Enrolment in Grades IX to X & NER: 3,84,80,023, 52,14%

·       Enrolment in XI & XII & NER: 2,46,82,548, 32.60%

·       Enrolment in Grade I: 1,31,37,951 Boys & 1,19,49,359 Girls

·       Average Annual Drop-out Rate, Primary level: 3.51%

·       Average Annual Drop-out Rate, Upper Primary level: 5.02%

·       Average Annual Drop-out Rate, Elementary level: 4.03%

·       Average Annual Drop-out Rate, Secondary level: 18.51%

·       Average Annual Drop-out Rate, Primary level: 2.77%

·       Retention Rate at Primary level: 86.11%

·       Retention Rate at Elementary level: 71.06%%

·       Retention Rate at Secondary level: 57.72%

·       Transition Rate from primary to Upper Primary level: 90.78%

·       Transition Rate from Upper Primary to Secondary level: 89.23%

·       Transition Rate from Secondary Higher to Secondary level: 68.05%

·       Gender Parity Index, Primary Grades: 1.02

·       Gender Parity Index, Upper Primary Grades: 1.11

·       Gender parity Index, Secondary Grades: 1.03

·       Gender parity Index, Higher Secondary Grades: 1.02

·       Completion Rate at Secondary Level: 64.97%

 As it seems that most of the indicators have improved over a period of time but the drop-out rate remained high which would significantly influence the objective of universal school enrolment. Another important issue is the decline in enrolment across school levels over a period of time is a major area of concern that must be thoroughly examined to find out the exact causes of decline which is across the country.  Net Enrolment Ratio is 85 percent which if not further improve to significant effect, enrolment in other higher levels cannot improve. Needless to mention that enrolment in upper primary and other higher levels can only improve if enrolment in primary classes is further improved which would happen only if the efficiency of the primary level of education is improved. This is also true for Higher Education which unless received an adequate number of Higher Secondary graduates, cannot increase on its own. 

Till recently plans were being developed separately for the elementary and secondary level of education, which now under Samagra Shiksha, are supposed to be developed for the entire School education level as one entity by one planning team but as of now the same old model of developing plans based on EXCEL Sheets is still going on. The only difference is that the entire set of EXCEL Tables are divided into three parts, elementary and RTE, Teacher education, and Secondary and higher secondary levels of education which are then provided to the person-in-charge looking after these components under the aegis of Samagra Shiksha. Hardly any research studies have been undertaken to see the impact of SSA and RMSA and whether its objectives have been achieved and if not, what are the reasons for non-achievement.

It may also be of interest to know that two separate district plans were used to be developed one each for elementary under SSA and another secondary level of education under RMSA by the two different agencies. In the initial years of RMSA, even there were two separate JRMs as well as PAB to approve annual plans. Till 2011-12, even DISE was also separately been managed by the Office of SSA and RMSA with a provision of two Data Capture Formats, one online application for SEMIS and another off-line software for SSA, two Nodal officers, one each for SSA an RMSA but there was only one data entry point because of which there was a lot of duplicity of efforts being made towards achieving the goal of school education in India. Maybe because of these reasons, Samagra Shiksha was launched in 2018-19 to meet the challenges of unfinished tasks of school education in India.