School enrolment stood at 26.5 crore children with 19.4 lakh additional children enrolled in Primary to Higher Secondary levels in FY22, as revealed in the Economic Survey 2022-23 by the central government. Furthermore, the total enrolment of Children With Special Needs (CWSN) in the same fiscal year increased 3.3% to 22.7 lakh in FY22 from 21.9 lakh in FY21, the data revealed. However, in pre-primary level, enrolment reduced to 1.0 crore in FY22 from 1.1 crore in FY21.
As per the survey, in FY22, nearly one crore children were enrolled in pre-primary, 12.2 crore in primary, 6.7 crore in upper primary, 3.9 crore in secondary and 2.9 crore in higher secondary. The report further suggested that the total enrolment in higher education has increased to nearly 4.1 crore in FY21 from 3.9 crore in FY20. “Since FY15, there has been an increase of around 72 lakh in enrolment (21%). The female enrolment has increased to 2.0 crore in FY21 from 1.9 crore in FY20,” it noted.
Interestingly, the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) for males increased to 26.7 in FY21 from 24.8 in FY20, while GER for females has grown to 27.9 from 26.4 during the same period. Enrollment in Distance Education increased 7% to 45.7 lakh, with 20.9 lakh females, since FY20. “ The GER in higher education, based on 2011 population projections (revised), was recorded at 27.3% in FY21, which is an improvement from 25.6 in FY20,” the report said.
In addition, the survey data suggested that there was a decline in the dropout rates across all school levels in FY22. For primary level, the decline rate was 1.5%, for upper primary level 3% and for secondary level the dropout rate declined 12.6 %.