The Ministry of Education (MoE) has issued a clarification regarding the reliability of Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) and high dropout rate at upper primary and secondary levels in Odisha. The Ministry said that the data available on the UDISE+ is not only reliable but the most trusted database in school education in the country.
“Based on the media reports, it has come to the notice of the Ministry that the Minister of School and Mass Education, Government of Odisha made a statement in the assembly denying the high rate of drop out in Odisha (27.3%) and stating that report of UDISE+ is not reliable and trustworthy,” the Ministry statement said.
The statement added that the data available on UDISE+ is complied by the head teacher/ head master of the school in all the States and goes through three stages of validation/ verification process at the Block/ Cluster level, District level and State level. This data is finally certified by State Project Director (SPD) at the State level which is then considered as approved by the State.
The clarification comes after Odisha’s Ministry of School and Mass Education denied UDISE+ findings on the state’s dropout rate of 27.3% in the assembly.
According to UDISE+ 2020-21, Odisha has reported a total of 21.42 lakh students in Upper Primary and 13.25 lakh students in Secondary. Similarly, in 2021-22, the same in respect of Upper Primary was 20.72 lakh and 12.46 lakh at Secondary.
