Dropouts rise, classrooms shrink, but Gujarat schools still have surplus teachers
AHMEDABAD: Gujarats latest education statistics reveal a system caught between falling enrolments and stubborn secondary-level dropouts. The five-year dropout trend sets the stage. Primary-level dropout rates remained nearly negligible, touching 1.02% in 2020-21, falling to 0% for two consecutive years, and inching up slightly to 0.1% and 0.2% in 2023-24 and 2024-25. Upper primary dropout rates have fluctuated over the years rising from 4.54% in 2020-21 to 4.95% in 2021-22, peaking at 5.8% in 2022-23, dipping to 4.2% in 2023-24, and again climbing back to 5.8% in 2024-25. Secondary dropout trends reveal sharp swings from a high 23.31% in 2020-21, dropping to 17.85% in 2021-22, surging again to 23.3% in 2022-23, easing to 21% in 2023-24, and falling further to 16.9% in 2024-25. This pattern becomes sharper when broken down by social groups. For Scheduled Castes in 2024-25, dropout at the primary level is nearly absent, but upper primary and secondary still show 4.4% and 15.4%, For 2024-25 in Gujarat, dropout rates among Scheduled Tribes (ST) stand at 0.2% in primary classes, 7.7% at the upper-primary level, and a significantly higher 20.2% in secondary education. The data on government school enrolment adds another troubling layer. Even as dropout rates surge at higher grades, the state is simultaneously witnessing a growing number of schools with less than ten or even zero students. This figure ballooned from 677 schools in 2022-23 to 906 in 2023-24, before dipping to 748 in 2024-25 still significantly high. Yet the teacher count in these near-empty schools has also climbed: from 1,391 teachers in 2022-23 to 1,641 in 2023-24, with a dip to 1,353 in 2024-25. The imbalance is stark: more teachers but fewer students raising critical questions on deployment, efficiency, and long-term planning. The backdrop to these anomalies is the steady reduction in the total number of government schools. Gujarat had 35,040 schools in 2019-20; the count slid gradually to 34,597 by 2023-24, recovering slightly to 34,638 in 2024-25. This shrinking footprint, combined with rising dropout rates and thinning enrolments in many campuses, paints a picture of consolidation without commensurate revitalisation.
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