The enrollment target for the state education department this year is 12,09,075 children which is the CRS birth records for 2013. (Representativel)Contrary to the state government’s claim of having achieved an enrollment of 99 per cent in schools through various drives, records show that a considerable number of children remained “untracked” in 2017 and 2018.
According to the Civil Registration System (CRS) records, as many as 12,14,550 births were reported from the state in 2011.
Subsequently in the academic session 2016-17 (when a child turns five to six, the school-going age), 7,00,245 children were enrolled in government schools, 3,81,255 in private schools and 45,365 in private schools under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
Thus, as many as 87,685 children, which is nearly 7 per cent, were not “tracked” in any of the government official records.
Similarly in 2012, where the CRS data shows 12,15,066 child births, the admission data under DISE shows that 6,95,537 children were enrolled in government schools, 3,90,882 in private schools and another 55,100 got enrolled under the RTE Act. Here, 73,547 children remained “untracked” in the state records. This is over 6 per cent or 94 per cent of the enrollment across the state.
When questioned on these “untracked” children, principal secretary, education, Vinod Rao said, “We are aware of these numbers and that is why the aim of the upgraded Praveshotsav 2.0 is to trace all the children and enroll them during the drive which will continue till August 31. However, we cannot also rule out the possibility that these students are enrolled in some private schools where there has been no data entry.”
The enrollment target for the state education department this year is 12,09,075 children which is the CRS birth records for 2013. Sources said that this year, for the first time, the state has attempted this micro planning where specific district targets as per the birth records have been assigned to each district primary education officers (DPEOs).
So far, the government schools were assigned this work where they would conduct survey in the school catchment area and identify children of school-going age.
The state government has time and again claimed that it has achieved over 99 per cent enrollment since 2015-16 and attributed this to schemes like shala praveshotsav, kanya kelavani mahotsav and Vidyalakshmi bond.
As per the government’s claims, while the enrollment of boys in the academic year 2015-16 was 99.05, it rose to 99.34 in 2016-17 and 99.28 in 2017-18. Similarly, for girls too, the records show that in 2015-16 the number was 98.22, in 2016-17 it touched 98.92, and 98.99 in 2017-18.
“The fact that here we are talking about enrollment only should be kept in mind too. So far, there was no system to check whether these are actual enrollments or merely on papers to impress the officials or to escape from inquiries on low enrollment numbers,” said a senior education official
