School dropout rate falls to 0.11%

As many as 6.79 lakh students have been newly admitted in the public education system

While student admissions in State-run schools have shown an encouraging increase, the drop-out rate of students too has shrunk significantly compared to 2016-17, Minister for General Education C. Ravindranath informed the Legislative Assembly on Monday.

The Minister, citing data presented in the Economic Review 2020, said the dropout rate has diminished to 0.11% in 2019-20 compared to 0.22% in 2016-17.

According to the Economic Review, Kerala has achieved the distinction of having the lowest dropout rate of school students among the States.

As per the MHRD report on Educational Statistics at a Glance, 2018, the all- India average dropout rate of primary students is 4.13 per cent while it is 4.03 per cent in upper primary and 17.06 per cent in the secondary levels, the Minister said quoting the Economic Review.

In Kerala, the dropout rate for the high school segment has declined from 0.33% in 2016-17 to 0.15% in 2019-2020. In the lower primary segment, it has dipped from 0.2% to 0.11% and in the upper primary classes, from 0.11% to 0.6%.

In some districts, like Alappuzha, the dropout rate was as low as 0.02%, the Minister said.

To a related question, the Minister reiterated that school admissions have witnessed a remarkable increase over the past five years.

As many as 6.79 lakh students have been newly admitted in the public education system, he said. He credited this achievement to a policy that combined modernisation and a people-friendly approach.