An unpleasant report projecting the issue of school drop outs in Jammu and Kashmir suggests that the performance of the School Education department in the erstwhile state has been very dismal even after over seven decades of freedom. With the government claiming to admit more than one lakh new entrants in the School Education Department, the Ministry of Education (MoE) on the contrary has said that there was a dropout rate of nearly 17 percent among the students of secondary level.
The MoE has also said that the highest dropout rate in the School Education Department was at secondary level.
According to the official documents MoE has noted that, “Drop-out rate at secondary level as per Unified District Information System for Education plus (UDISE) 2019-20 was 16.68 percent across Jammu and Kashmir.”
The MoE has also suggested to the concerned authorities that the dropout rate in Jammu and Kashmir needs to be focused by the concerned department to meet the target and the authorities must expedite community based survey identifying issues for such drop out.
Besides the dropout issue, the MoE has said that the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) at Secondary, Higher Secondary level as per UDISE+ 2019-20 at secondary level is 58.66 and at higher secondary level is 38.40 respectively.
“Jammu and Kashmir government needs to develop an effective and comprehensive strategy to improve the gross enrolment at both the levels,” MoE said.
The Teachers in government schools are highly qualified and best paid compared to other regular employments. They have to understand the reasons for decline in enrolment of students in the institutions.
Most of the students studying in government schools belong from underprivileged families who quit their studies mid way to earn the major chunk for their family.
While poverty among the families may be one of the main reasons for the decline of enrolment in the public schools, there needs to be extra efforts on the part of Teachers to motivate and facilitate the students and their parents to avail many government sponsored schemes and lift their morale for continuing the schooling of their wards.
Government schools have all the basic facilities like free textbooks, quality education, perks of mid-day meals and infrastructure but improper approach to the government schools the poor perception that has been created against these schools is also a major reason for the decline in enrolment. The problem that needed the urgent attention to contain the phenomena has so far been neglected. The biggest drawback of school education is the irrational deployment of teachers in schools. While schools in Jammu and other urban areas are over-burdened with more teachers but those in rural and remote areas remain without teachers or having a single teacher for years.
There are schools in Jammu where the teachers are far more than the students on roll. The ailing ‘Attachment syndrome’ in Teachers’ transfers is primarily responsible for the mess. Thus holistic attention is needed towards this neglected aspect of our school education system. The sooner the better!
