School dropout rates decline, student retention improves: Education ministry report

According to a new report by the Education Ministry, the academic year 2024-25 has seen a notable reduction in dropout rates across the preparatory, middle and secondary levels as compared to the last two years — 2022-23, and 2023-24 — highlighting improved student retention.

At the preparatory stage, the dropout rate declined from 3.7 per cent to 2.3 per cent; at the middle stage, from 5.2 per cent to 3.5 per cent; and at the secondary stage, from 10.9 per cent to 8.2 per cent in comparison with the previous year.

According to a detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE ) 2024-25 on school education of India, the total number of teachers has crossed the one crore mark in 2024-25, marking a 6.7 per cent jump during the reporting year as compared to 2022-23. There has also been a rise in the representation of female teachers, with women now comprising 54.2 per cent of the total teaching workforce.

UDISE is an online management information system (MIS) that collects data on schools, teachers and students across India, serving as a unified, national database for school education to inform planning and decision-making.

The Pupil Teacher ratio (PTR), which indicates the number of students per teacher in a classroom has also improved. Chandigarh and Delhi, have the highest number of students per school with PTR indicating optimum utilisation of school infrastructure. On the other hand, for states such as Ladakh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, students per school are significantly low indicating the need for optimisation of school’s infrastructure.

National Education Policy (NEP) recommended reaching a PTR ratio of 30:1 at all levels of the school education system.

While in Chandigarh the PTR is 25, it is 28 in Delhi.

“States such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, J&K, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Meghalaya percentage of school available are more than percentage students enrolled implying underutilization of available schools leading to suboptimal economy to scale. Whereas in States viz Punjab, West Bengal, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Bihar and Kerala, percentage of available schools are significantly less as compared to enrolled students indicating more students per school,” the report said.

The data also pointed out that student retention across all educational levels — foundational, preparatory, middle, and secondary have improved. Retention rates have improved significantly compared in 2024-25 to the previous year, increasing from 98.0 per cent to 98.9 per cent at the foundational level, 85.4 per cent to 92.4 per cent at the preparatory level, 78.0 per cent to 82.8 per cent at the middle level, and 45.6 per cent to 47.2 per cent at the secondary level.

The transition rate from foundational to preparatory increased from 98.1 per cent to 98.6 per cent, from preparatory to middle rose from 88.8 per cent to 92.2 per cent, and from middle to secondary improved from 83.3 per cent to 86.6 per cent.

Another notable improvement is the increase in the number of schools with computer access, rising from 57.2 per cent in 2023-24 to 64.7 per cent in 2024-25 and the percentage of schools with internet connectivity increased from 53.9 per cent in the previous year to 63.5 per cent.