The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2020-21 latest annual report has mentioned dropout rate for secondary level education to 14.6 per cent. At the peak of the covid pandemic with school closures, 247 million children were affected in India.
Besides there has also been a rise in School Dropout Rates of girls in India which pose an alarming situation as per a report by UNICEF. “With the current situation, we might be risking a lost generation of children who may never return to school. The impact on girls is disproportionately worse,” said Yasumasa Kimura, UNICEF India Representative. It further said at least 38 per cent of respondents of a poll conducted on International Women’s Days said they knew of a girl who had dropped out of school. While 33 per cent youth respondents said that the girls who had dropped out were engaged in domestic work, 25 per cent reported that the dropouts had got married.
“This is indeed a matter of grave concern. It is critical that we work towards transitioning all children back into learning. UNICEF is supporting the Government of India in back-to-school campaigns, awareness and outreach initiatives and learning recovery programmes at schools and in the communities. We must not only bring children back to school but also focus on putting strong remedial learning initiatives in place to ensure retention and continuity of learning,” said Kimura.
