Over 1.85 lakh students have joined in Classes 1 to 9 in government and aided schools in the State this year.
Director of Public Instruction K.V. Mohan Kumar said in a press note here on Friday that as many as 1,85,971 students had joined the government and aided stream in these classes as shown by the sixth-day head count.
If taken together with the 1,45,208 students who had joined the government and aided stream last year, the total number of students now studying in the public education system would come to 3,31,179. The number of students in government schools had gone up by 6.3% (70,644) and those in the aided sector by 5.4% (1,15,327). In the unaided sector, the number had fallen by 8% (33,174).
As many as 10,078 students had joined in Class 1. The trend was common to all districts. The sharpest increase was seen in Malappuram where there was a 49.7% increase in enrolment (5,009 students). At the State level, the increase was marked in Class 5 with as many as 45,702 students joining.
In Class 8, a 20.28% increase in enrolment was recorded with 37,724 students securing admission. The overall increase in the number of students in public education institutions rose by 32,349 during this year. This was for the first time that the State had registered an increase in enrolment, the DPI said.
The increase in enrolment in public education institutions was the highest in Malappuram (32,964), followed by Kozhikode (20,043), Palakkad (17,197), Kannur (16,802), Kollam (16,720), and Thiruvananthapuram (15,777). Last year, there were 36.81 lakh students in government (11,26,712), aided (21,40,794) and unaided (41,32,234) streams. This year, the numbers are higher in government schools (11,45,973) and aided schools (21,53,882).
