NITI Aayog Report Highlights Enrollment Disparities in Primary Schools

Jan. 31, 2024, 2:54 p.m.

A recent report by NITI Aayog sheds light on a concerning trend in primary education across several states in India. The report pointed out 6 issues that need to be addressed to implement a large-scale transformation in providing quality education, including inadequately resourced schools, large-scale teacher vacancies, poor teacher quality and pedagogy, lack of accountability towards learning outcomes, and less focus on Early Childhood Education (ECE) and contextualising Mother tongue-based Multilingual Education (MLE).

The findings reveal that over 50% of primary schools grapple with enrollment levels below 60%, posing a significant challenge to the education system. The report underscores the urgent need for targeted redressals to address this enrollment gap. As education plays a pivotal role in shaping the future, ensuring access and participation in primary schools becomes paramount.

This revelation serves as a call to action for policymakers, educators, and communities alike to collaborate on interventions such as school consolidation and teacher rationalisation. The Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital - Education (Project SATH-E) initiated by the NITI Aayog in 2017 aims at making a wide transformation with a focus on improving quality education.

The education sector is presented with an opportunity to innovate and implement measures that guarantee equitable access to quality education for every child. For example, school merging was executed in the project to curb the cost of sub-scale schools, and favourable results from the action plan were reported. Ultimately, The NITI Aayog report acts as a catalyst for collective efforts towards a more inclusive and accessible education system.