In news– Recently, the Ministry of Education has released a detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2020-21 on school education in India.
Key highlights of UDISE+ 2020-21-
Students in schools-
- In 2020-21 total students enrolled in school education from primary to higher secondary stood at 25.38 crore.
- Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) which measures the general level of participation has improved in 2020-21 at all levels of school education compared to 2019-20.
- Level wise GER in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20 are: 92.2% from 89.7% in upper primary, 99.1 % from 97.8% in elementary, 79.8% from 77.9% in secondary and 53.8% from 51.4% in higher secondary respectively.
- In 2020-21 over 12.2 crore girls are enrolled in primary to higher secondary showing an increase of 11.8 lakh girls compared to the enrolment of girls in 2019-20.
- Due to Pandemic, during 2020-21, 39.7 lakh students of government aided, private school students shifted to Government schools.
Teachers in schools & the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR)-
- It was found that 96.96 lakh teachers are engaged in school education during 2020-21. This is higher by about 8800 in comparison with the number of teachers in school education in 2019-20.
- In 2020-21 PTR stood at 26 for primary, 19 for upper primary, 18 for secondary and 26 for higher secondary, showing an improvement since 2018-19.
- The PTR for primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary was 28, 20, 21, and 30 respectively during 2018-19.
Non-teaching staffs-
- The number of non-teaching staff has also improved over the years.
- Total non teaching staff during 2020-21 stood at 15.8 lakh as compared to 12.37 lakhs in 2018-19.
School Infrastructure-
- Now 84% of the total schools have functional electricity facility in comparison with 73.85% in 2018-19 showing remarkable improvement of 10.15% during the period.
- Percentage of the schools with functional drinking water has increased to 95.2 % in 2020-21 from 93.7 % in 2019-20.
- Percentage of the school with a functional girl’s toilet facility has increased to 93.91 % in 2020-21 in comparison with 93.2 % in 2019-20 by adding the facility in additional 11,933 schools during the year.
- Percentage of schools with hand wash facilities has also improved during 2020-21 and now stands at 91.9 % as compared to 90.2 % in 2019-20.
- Number of schools having functional computers increased to 6 lakh in 2020-21 from 5.5 lakh in 2019-20 showing an increase of 3 %. Now, 40% of the schools have functional computers.
- Number of schools having internet facilities increased to 3.7 lakh in 2020-21 from 3.36 lakh in 2019-20 with an increase of 2.6%.
United District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+)-
- The UDISE+ system of online data collection from the schools was developed by the Department of School Education & Literacy, the Ministry of Education in the year 2018-19.
- UDISE+ seeks to overcome the issues related to erstwhile practice of manual data filling in paper format and subsequent feeding on computers at the block or district level in the UDISE data collection system since 2012-13.
- UDISE+ collects information through an online Data Collection Form (DCF) on parameters ranging from school, Infrastructure, teachers, enrolments, examination results etc. spread across 11 sections.
- UDISE+ has a mandate of collecting information from all recognized and unrecognized schools imparting formal education from Pre-primary to XII.
- Information collected through the digital platform of UDISE+, is utilized for the planning, optimized resource allocation and implementation of various education-related programs and assessments of progress made.
Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER)-
- GER is a statistical measure used in the education sector, and formerly by the UN in its Education Index, to determine the number of students enrolled in school at several different grade levels (like elementary, middle school and high school), and use it to show the ratio of the number of students who live in that country to those who qualify for the particular grade level.
- UNESCO describes “Gross Enrolment Ratio” as the total enrollment within a country “in a specific level of education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population in the official age group corresponding to this level of education”.
Further reading: https://journalsofindia.com/unified-district-information-on-school-education-udise/
Source: PIB
