Enrolment at Delhi govt schools sees upward tick: Economic Survey

Student enrolment at Delhi government and government-aided schools has shown a slight increase in 2021-22 to 41.46% against the total admissions in all schools in the city, data from the Economic Survey 2022-23 shows. The figure stood at 39.36% in 2020-21

New Delhi

There are 5,619 recognised schools in Delhi at present, with approximately 4.57 million students enrolled in them, data shared through the report showed. (HT PHOTO)

Student enrolment at Delhi government and government-aided schools has shown a slight increase in 2021-22 to 41.46% against the total admissions in all schools in the city, data from the Economic Survey 2022-23 shows. The figure stood at 39.36% in 2020-21.

At the same time, the share of enrolment at private schools has shown a dip, falling to 32.79% in 2021-22 from 39.78% in 2020-21.

The enrolment in private schools was broken down into two categories — primary and middle levels, and secondary and senior secondary levels. Enrolment in the primary and middle school levels in private schools dipped from 43.91% in 2020-21 to 34.95% in 2021-22. A similar trend was seen in enrolment at secondary and senior secondary levels, which saw a fall to 27.75% in 2021-22 from 29.94% in 2020-21, the survey released by the Delhi government on Monday said.

There are 5,619 recognised schools in Delhi at present, with approximately 4.57 million students enrolled in them, data shared through the report showed.

“Out of these, the Delhi government has a total of 1,250 government and government-aided schools in Delhi, which is 22.24% of the total schools running in Delhi. However, the share of enrolment in government and government-aided schools is 41.46% of the total enrolment of all schools in Delhi during 2021-22.” the survey said.

A total of 1.77 million students were enrolled in the 1,047 Delhi government schools in 2021-22, while the figure was 1.62 million across 1,027 Delhi government schools in 2020-21.

Out of the 203 Delhi government-funded schools in 2021-22, 142,000 students got enrolled, which was fairly similar to 2020-21, where 143,000 students got enrolled across such schools, the number of which stood at 204 at the time

Across Delhi in 2021-22, 3.19 million students were enrolled in total, out of which 1.12 million got enrolled in private schools. In 2020-21, out of the 3.15 million students getting enrolled in Delhi, 1.39 million took admission at private schools.

Sudha Acharya, chairperson, National Progressive School Conference (NPSC) said that this was the first time that she witnessed such a trend of fall in admissions in private schools in Delhi, adding that students usually dropped out of schools after Class 10. “It is surprising that this trend has been observed over the last year, as admissions in private schools are back to normal, similar to before the pandemic. Even in cases where students lost a family member or their parents due to Covid-19, we still ensured no child dropped out. There have also been instances where students have dropped out of government schools after failing classes 9 or 11,” said.

With regard to infrastructure development, the survey said that around 20,000 equivalent additional classrooms were made functional in 2021-22, with 27 new school buildings being completed in the same time across the city.

“Sanction has been issued for construction of 20 more school buildings by the PWD and 8 new school Buildings by DTTDC. Out of 728 school buildings, CCTVs have been installed in 619 school buildings and 19 school buildings are under process. The work in remaining 90 school buildings shall be started after the availability of school sites.” the survey report said.

The survey also noted that on September 28, 2021, the Deshbhakti Curriculum was launched across all Delhi government schools. During 2022-23, 100% of the schools implemented the curriculum, it said.

It further added that Delhi had fared well on the education front, largely by ensuring access to affordable education, preventing school dropouts, improving student-teacher attendance and allocating highest share of annual budget to education every year.

“As per the State Budget analysis report of RBI, it may be observed that the Delhi government has continuously been investing the highest share of its budget in the education sector among all states. During 2022-23, Delhi was at the top with 20.5 % of its budget estimates earmarked for the education sector followed by Assam (19.6%) and Chhattisgarh (17.8%). The National Average was 13.6% in 2022-23.”