High Dropout Rate: Centre Counters Odisha Minister’s Claim On UDISE+ Report As Unreliable

Bhubaneswar: The Central government has countered Odisha government’s claim that the report of UDISE+ on high drop-out rate among school students was not reliable and trustworthy.

In a press release on Thursday, the Ministry of Education stated that the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data is not only reliable but the only pan India and most trusted database in school education in the country.

Odisha’s Minister of School and Mass Education had made a statement in the Assembly denying the high rate of dropout (27.3%) in the state by saying that report of UDISE+ is not reliable and trustworthy.

The ministry said the UDISE+ is one of the largest Management Information System initiated by Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSEL) under the ministry covering more than 14.89 lakh schools, 95 lakh teachers and 26.5 crore students.

“The head teachers/headmasters of the school in all the states compile the data and it goes through 3 stages of validation/verification process at block/cluster, district and state levels. This data is finally certified by State Project Director (SPD) at the state level. Once certified by SPD, the data of the respective state is considered as approved by the state. Therefore, data is entered in UDISE+ portal by the state itself,” said the ministry.

UDISE+ truly represents one nation one data base in respect of school cducation in the country. It is an online portal facility created by DoSEL for record of data related schools, teachers, enrolment, infrastructure etc. in respect of all recognised schools in the country. In UDISE+ school wise data is captured through Data Capture Format (DCF). Each school has been provided with login ID and password for facilitating online data compilation by respective schools.

“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 schools. Similarly, in 2021-22, the same in respect of Upper Primary was 20.72 lakh and 12.46 lakh at Secondary. Therefore, there is a clear decline of enrolment across both levels in Odisha,” the ministry said.

It further said as per the data reported by Government of Odisha in UDISE+ portal, the dropout rate among the students at upper primary and secondary level has been prepared.

“The dropout rate at Upper Primary level in Odisha is 7.3% and at the Secondary level, it is 27.3% against the national average of 3% and 12.6% respectively. Further, the dropout rate for girls at Upper Primary level is 6.5% and Secondary level 25% against the national average of 3.3% and 12.3% respectively,” the ministry said.