Bhopal: Despite the “Praveshtosava” and other much-publicised campaigns of the state government with catchy lines like “School Chalein Hum” and its repeated assertions that it wants to bring down the dropout rate, children are simply not taking admissions in schools.
At least that is inescapable conclusion from the official latest available data. Since April 1, when the admissions began, to date, only 1.15 crore children have taken admissions in schools as against 1.43 crore in the last year – a substantial 30 lakh gap. And that is probably why the government has extended the last date of admissions from July 31 to August 12.
Commissioner, School Education, Neeraj Dubey, however said that difference in the figures was due to delayed mapping. “The schools have to upload the details of the enrolment on department’s website”, he said. He claimed that the actual position would become clear by October when the mapping would be completed. He also claimed that the dropout rate up from class one to eight was negligible and most of the students give up studies between class 9 and class 12.
Students mortally afraid of Board exams
Every year more than 3 lakh class 9 students do not take admissions in class 10 fearing Board Exams. According to official data, around one lakh students leave studies per class per year. In 2016, 13,39,144 students cleared class 9 exam but only 9,50,144 took admissions in the class 10 the next year. Thus almost 3.9 lakh students preferred not to study any further. Similarly in the year 2015, 13,08,772 took admissions in the class nine but only 9,74,656 students took admission in class 10 and around 3.6 lakh did not.
