Number of students enrolled under SC, ST, OBC, CWSN increased in 2021-22: UDISE+ report

New Delhi [India], November 3 (ANI): The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of schoolchildren at primary, upper primary and higher secondary levels in India has improved in 2021-22 compared to the previous year, as per the latest edition of the Education Ministry's UDISE+ report (Unified District Information System for Education Plus).
In 2021-22 total students enrolled from primary to higher secondary levels stood at 25.57 crore while it was 25.38 crore in 2020-21, and it is an increase of 19.36 lakh, the ministry has informed.
"Total number of Scheduled caste enrollment increased to 4.82 crore in 2021-22 as compared to 4.78 crore in 2020-21. Similarly, total Scheduled Tribe enrollment increased to 2.51 crore in 2021-22 from 2.49 crore in 2020-21. Total OBC students also increased to 11.48 crore in 2021-22 from 11.35 crore in 2020-21," an official statement said.
In UDISE+ 2021-22, additional data on important indicators - digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in the school library, etc have been collected for the first time to align with the NEP 2020 initiatives, the Ministry of Education said.
The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) which measures the general level of participation has improved in 2021-22 at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education, as compared to 2020-21. Notably, GER in higher secondary has made a significant improvement from 53.8 per cent in 2021-21 to 57.6 per cent in 2021-22, the Ministry's statement said.
According to the data, the total enrolment of Children with Special Needs (CWSN) in 2021-22 stands at 22.67 lakh as compared to 21.91 lakh in 2020-21 showing an improvement of 3.45 per cent over 2020-21.
"In 2021-22 over 12.29 crore girls are enrolled in primary to higher secondary showing an increase of 8.19 lakh compared to the enrolment of girls in 2020-21. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) of GER shows the representation of females in school education is in line with the representation of girls in the population of the corresponding age group. The GPI value at all levels of school education are one or more implying more participation of girls in the school education,' the ministry said.
"The total number of schools in 2021-22 stood at 14.89 lakh as compared to 15.09 lakh in 2020-21. The decline in total schools is mainly due to closure of private and other management schools and grouping/clustering of schools by various states," the statement further read.
The UDISE+ system of online data collection from the schools was developed by the Department of School Education and Literacy in the year 2018-19 to overcome the issues related to the erstwhile practice of manual data filling in paper format. In the UDISE+ system, improvements have been made particularly in the areas related to data capture, data mapping and data verification. (ANI)