Kerala ranks first in
education index
Special Correspondent
New Delhi: Kerala ranks first and
Bihar brings up the rear in the first composite Education Development
Index (EDI) prepared to track the progress of States towards providing
universal elementary education.
Prepared by the National University of
Educational Planning and Administration, the EDI was released on Monday
along with the District Report Cards for 2005-06 that are routinely
brought out by the District Information System of Education.
Among the best performing States were
Kerala, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry while Jharkhand, Arunachal
Pradesh and West Bengal keep Bihar company at the bottom. A break-up of
the data shows that Delhi tops in primary and Kerala in upper primary
while Bihar holds on to its position of being the worst performer on
both counts.
Covering 11,24,033 schools across the
country, the enrolment of students in classes I to VIII in 2005-06
showed an increase of 12.28 million over the previous year to 168.29
million. However, 180 of the 581 districts reported a decline in primary
enrolment.
As for retention at the primary level,
Tamil Nadu recorded the best at 100 per cent. Next in line is Madhya
Pradesh (95.50) followed by Kerala with a retention rate of 95.37 per
cent. At the national level, the retention rate has gone up from 58 per
cent in 2004 to 71 per cent in 2005.
The number of repeaters has also
registered a fall from 11.83 million in 2005 to 9.9 million in 2006. The
biggest cause for the high incidence of repeaters is failure followed by
long absenteeism and re-admission.
While failure accounts for 57 per cent
of the repeaters, 27 per cent are long absentees and 16 are re-admission
cases.
On girls' enrolment, government
schools have maintained their lead. As has been the case for the past
three years, government schools have recruited more girls than private
schools.
Among the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and
Scheduled Tribes (STs), the enrolment has registered a drop over the
past couple of years.
From 20.58 per cent in 2004-05, it has
come down to 18.64 per cent among the SCs.
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