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Chennai, Oct 29 (IANS) Tamil Nadu has recorded a sharp rise in school dropout rates across all three key stages – primary (classes 1-5), upper primary (6-8), and secondary (9-10) for the academic year 2024-25, according to the latest Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data released by the Union Education Ministry on Tuesday.
For a state long considered one of India’s best performers in school retention, the new data has sparked widespread concern. Dropout rates at the primary and upper primary levels have increased from 0% last year to 2.7% and 2.8% respectively – the highest in the last five years.
At the secondary level, the rate increased from 7.7% in 2023-24 to 8.5% this year. School education department officials said they would respond after reviewing the report in detail.
The figures mark a dramatic turnaround for Tamil Nadu, which now lags behind its southern peers in primary education – Kerala (0.8%), Karnataka (0%), Andhra Pradesh (1.4%), and Telangana (0%) all perform better.
At the national level, Tamil Nadu ranks ninth from the bottom, well behind the average primary dropout rate of 0.3%. However, it continues to outperform the national average in the upper primary (3.5%) and secondary (11.5%) categories.
The data also points to a worrying trend of decline in enrollment in government and aided schools and a corresponding increase in private school admissions.
Enrollment in Class 1 in government schools fell from 2.8 lakh in 2023-24 to 2.7 lakh this year, while in government-aided schools fell from 97,692 to 91,694. In contrast, private schools recorded an increase, with Class 1 enrollments increasing from 5.17 lakh to 5.62 lakh.
Tamil Nadu currently has 57,935 schools with 1.25 crore students and 5.49 lakh teachers. The student-teacher ratio improved slightly from 24 to 23, but the number of single-teacher schools rose sharply from 2,758 to 3,671, serving more than 95,000 students. While the UDISE+ report states that about 98% of government schools have functional toilets, activists argue that infrastructure alone cannot stem the dropout rate.
–IANS
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