– Baishali Mukherjee

A Union Education Ministry report published on January 7, states that the percentage of dropouts in the secondary schools of West Bengal (pop. 91 million) for 2023-24 academic year was as high as 18.75, which is highest in the country. The dropout rate is higher for boys (21.5 per cent) than for girls (14.2 per cent). According to the report, there were over 3,000 dropouts in schools across Bengal in the last academic year, while 3,254 schools had no student enrollments during the previous academic year, making them completely student-less. West Bengal also has the highest number of student-less schools in India. According to the report, despite having no students, these schools employed a total of 14,627 teachers, and there are 6,366 single-teacher schools in the state.

Responding to the report, state education minister Bratya Basu said, “I have to look into it. I cannot vouch that their reports are flawless. However, we repeatedly told the central government to extend the mid-day meal scheme up to Class X. Students get the meal till Class VIII. They don’t get the meal when they are promoted to the secondary level. This could create problems for students from extremely underprivileged families,”.

On January 7, BJP leader and former Union minister Subhash Sarkar while criticising the high school dropout rates, said, “Even a state as large as UP has a lower number of school dropouts than Bengal.”  “In Birbhum, the dropout rate is 17.2 per cent, in Murshidabad it is 16.9 per cent, in South 24 Parganas it is 16.1 per cent, in Purba Bardhaman it is 15.6 per cent, in Uttar Dinajpur it is 15.1 per cent and in Malda it is 14.5 per cent. In all districts the dropout rate is above 12 percent. There are 70 lakh migrant workers from our state, and with the high unemployment rate, no one knows where these students are going. Also, a majority of the universities in the state are private and have empty seats. “But no attention is being given to it. The TMC government has no interest in the uplift of the education system,” he added. 

Contrarily, according to the latest Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report for the academic year 2023-2024, West Bengal has recorded a zero percent dropout rate at both primary and upper primary levels, against the national average of 1.9 percent for primary and 5.2 percent for upper primary. It is pertinent to note here that in the academic year 2022-2023, the dropout rate was 8.1 per cent at the primary level (classes I-V) and 3.4 per cent at the upper primary level (classes VI-VIII). The report also shows improvements in the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) at the primary level, with the PTR decreasing from 27 in 2021-2022 to 23 in 2023-2024. The PTR at other school levels has remained relatively unchanged over the last three years. The overall PTR for the state is 31, consistent with the previous academic year.According to the state education department, government schools in West Bengal educate almost 90 percent of students in the state, which is higher than the national average of nearly 51 percent. The report also shows that West Bengal achieved a GER of 101.3 at the secondary level and 106.7 at the elementary level, both of which are well above the national averages of 77.4 and 91.7 respectively.

Also read: West Bengal schools see fewer dropouts at higher secondary level this year