UDISE Plus report 2019-20: From enrollment to pupil-teacher ratio, condition of Indian schools improve; key highlights

On Tuesday, Union minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank released the Unified District Information System for Education Plus report (UDISE+) 2019-2020. The UDISE+ report unveiled some interesting facts, both positive and negative about Indian school education system.

But before we get to those, let's first understand what UDISE+ is and why it is important:

What is it? 

• UDISE+ is one of the largest Management Information Systems on school education.
• It covers more than 1.5 million schools, 8.5 million teachers and 250 million children.
• Launched in 2018-2019, UDISE+ was introduced to speed up data entry, reduce errors, improve data quality and ease its verification.
• It is an updated and improved version of UDISE, which was initiated in 2012-13 by the Ministry of Education under the UPA govt by integrating DISE for elementary education and SEMIS for secondary education.

Why is it important? 

As per the UDISE+ website, "Timely and accurate data is the basis of sound and effective planning and decision-making. Towards this end, the establishment of a well-functioning and Sustainable Educational Management Information System is of utmost importance today."

In short, the UDISE+ helps measure the education parameters from classes 1 to 12 in government and private schools across India.

What the 2019-20 report says

• The total enrolment in 2019-20 from primary to higher secondary levels of school education was a little over 25.09 crore.
• Enrolment for boys was 13.01 crore and that of the girls was 12.08 crore.
• This was an increase by more than 26 lakh over the previous year 2018-19.

Many of the schools under the UDISE+ system had pre-primary classes. If those numbers are included then:

• A total of 26.45 crore students were enrolled in school education from pre-primary to higher secondary in 2019-20.
• That's an increase of 42.3 lakh compared to 2018-2019.
• The enrolment of girls increased at all levels of school education in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19.
• The increase was highest in pre-primary level.

Pupil-teacher ratio improves

One of the main positive takeaways from the 2019-2020 report is that the Pupil-Teacher Ratio — the average number of pupils (at a specific level of education) per teacher (teaching at that level of education) in a given school year — showed an improvement all levels of school education in 2019-2020 over 2012-2013.

As Union minister Pokhriyal tweeted:

Pupil-Teacher Ratio improved at all levels of School Education in 2019-20 from 2012-13.
- PTR for Primary became 26.5, whereas it was 34.0
- PTR for Upper Primary became 18.5 from 23.1
- PTR for Secondary became 18.5, from 29.7
- PTR for Higher Secondary became 26.1 from 39.2 pic.twitter.com/kdIWh713NF

— Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank (@DrRPNishank) July 1, 2021

GER improves

The gross enrolment ratio (GER), which compares the enrolment in a specific level of education to the population of the age group which is age-appropriate for that level of education has improved at all levels in 2019-2020 compared to 2018-2019.

The GER increased to 89.7 percent (from 87.7 percent) at Upper Primary level, 97.8 percent (from 96.1 percent) at Elementary Level, 77.9 percent (from 76.9 percent) at Secondary Level and 51.4 percent (from 50.1 percent) at Higher Secondary Level in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19.

Between 2012-13 and 2019-20, the gross erolment ratio for girls at both secondary and higher secondary level has increased more than that of the boys. GER for girls at secondary level has gone up by 9.6 percent to reach 77.8 percent in 2019-20 compared to 68.2 percent in 2012-13.

Phyical infrastructure improves, but computers and internet access remain lacking

The report stated that just 38.5 percent of schools across the country had computers, while only 22.3 percent had an internet connection in 2019-20. This is an improvement over 2018-2019 when 34.5 percent of schools had computers and a mere 18.7 percent of schools had internet access.

Meanwhile, more than 90 percent schools had hand wash facilities in 2019-20, a major improvement from 2012-13 when that figure was just 36.3 percent. More than 83 percent schools had electricity in 2019-20, an improvement by almost 7 percent over the previous 2018-2019 year.

More than 84 percent of schools had libraries/reading rooms/reading corners in 2019-2020, an improvement of nearly four percent compared to 2018-2019. That's a vast improvement over 2012-2013 when around 69.2 percent of schools had libraries/ reading rooms/ reading corners.

More than 82 percent schools of conducted medical check-up of students in 2019-20, an improvement by more than four percent over the previous 2018-19 year.

Key takeaways

1. While physical infrastructure is steadily improving, the digital infrastructure for schools has a long way to go.
2. With the overwhelming majority of schools have neither computers (61 percent) nor internet access (78 percent), achieving the Centre's 'Digital India' vision when it comes to online education is still some ways off.
3. The vast increase in hand wash facilities is a big step towards the fulfilment of the Modi government's 'Swachh Bharat' push.
4.  The Gross Enrolment Ratio improving  at all levels of school education in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19 is a plus.
5.  While 93 lakh more boys enrolled in education than girls, when it comes to GER, the girls pulled ahead.

With inputs from PTI