The deeper meaning of declining school enrolment
As the world’s most populous country, India hopes to reap its demographic dividend due to its burgeoning youth population. It is no wonder that the Unified District Information System for Education Plus data for 2022-23 and 2023-24, which was released by the Ministry of Education on December 30, 2024, caused much consternation as it showed a 15.5 million drop in school enrolment since 2018-19. It is a matter of concern that school enrolment has plummeted by 24.51 million, or 9.45%, over the past decade, with elementary-level enrolment registering a rather pronounced fall of 18.7 million. The decline in the population in the age groups of 6-13 and 14-15 years, relevant to enrolment at the elementary and secondary levels, has dropped by 18.7 million and 2.17 million, respectively. Delving deeper, the data discern a statistically significant strong positive correlation between school enrolment and the estimated population in the relevant age group, so much so that the decline in the population of the relevant age group explains the 60.36% decline in enrolment.
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