School Education in India:An Integrated picture

Despite the well recognized challenge and payoffs of Human Development and education attainment, it is hard to find a single report or data source that gives an overall picture of educational attainment for India. If at all, the data is available with a time lag of 3 years by which time Indian economy might grow 30% rendering it obsolete. This blog had earlier looked at state level data about Engineering education. Continuing further, this article and the associated document describes the overall Statewise education scenario for India from enrollments in Class 1 upto statistics about number of students passing out of Class 12th. The data source is primarily DISE and the newspaper reports about the results of different State and Central Examination boards. The document also contain the enrollment and qualification data by gender by using the

Gender based Exam results publications. The latest available enrollment data for upper primary is for Year 2007-08 and hence compatible and comparable with the Matriculation results of current year 2009-10. But the data for Intermediate classes cannot be strictly compared to that for matriculation due to 2 year lag and hence can only be indicative of broad picture.

Here are some interesting observations:

1. Karnataka, home state of the knowledge capital of India, Bangalore has a GCR(Graduation Candidature ratio) of 17.83 just marginally less worse than the most backward state Madhya Pradesh in this regard which has a GCR of 17.96. This means only 1 out of 10 students in his age group attains the eligibility to apply for admission to a college. Delhi is the best state on this count with a GCR of 64.4 with Tamil Nadu a distant 2nd at 55.79 and Himachal 3rd with GCR of 48.26
2. Gujarat,an otherwise economically advanced state has a shockingly low GER of 54% at upper primary level resulting in a poor GCR of 23.30%. Only States that have a worst Upper primary GER than Gujarat are UP and Bihar. In terms of GCR, Gujarat is 6th worst among all States.
3. At all India level there were 1.64 Crore students in upper primary and surprisingly 1.66Crore students in Matric level.This partly indicates inaccuracy in DISE numbers and partly a high number of repeaters and overaged students.Noteable high ratio of Upper Primary to matric are UP-1.61 and Jharkhand-1.24. This means that for every 10 matric students, there were 6 students in 8th Class in UP and 8 students in Jharkhand. Given that both of these states have passing rate of about 70%, even if we accept all 30% who failed are repeating where are the extra 30% in UP coming from?Certainly,UP did not experience any population boom induced by some astrologically auspicious phenomenon or any immigration shock.
4. There were total 96.6 lakh students in 12th Class out of which 77.5 lakhs passed.Since there are about 8.6 Lakh engineering seats,every 9th Graduation candidate can opt for engineering.
5. The overall pass percentage hides the poor pass percentage in constiuent disciplines in some States. For example, in case of Jharkhand, Science pass percentage was is 30.33 though overall pass percentage is 50.39.
6. The matriculation pass percentage of Jharkhand has dropped from 87% in 2008 to 74.3% in 2010. Jharkhand is probably the only state to witness so much deterioration in Education attainment while most of the States have improved theirs. Chief Minister Shibu Soren was perhaps the only Chief Minister to personally release the result.
7. Similar to Gujarat, West Bengal has a low ratio of students reaching potential graduation stage at 22.51 inconsistent with its image of an intellectuals' state.
8. The national capital seems to have the best educational infrastructure what with 64.44% students attaining graduation candidature but this is tempered by the fact that there is only 1 engineering seat per 30 students passing out of 12th class as against the national average of 1:9
9. Kerala is at the top in terms of gender parity with 72% of 12th students being girls whereas the ratio is almost inverted for the state on the other end of spectrum Rajasthan with 35% of students being girls.
10. In Punjab,a state with a very low sex ratio, 56% of the students in 10th class are girls whereas the last state on this count is Gujrat with only 37% girl students in 10th class.
11. Leadership of Tamilnadu in education is exhibited by 115% GER in upper primary, 80% of them transitioning to matric, pass percentage of both 10th and 12th standard being in 80s and 2nd highest number of Engineering seats among all States.
12. Some of the north eastern states like Tripura and Manipur have a greater number of graduation candidates than better known Goa.
13. The number of children in 8th standard is only about half of the number in 1st standard despite an upper primary GER of 75% for All India.
14. In case of Jharkhand there are 5 students in 1st standard for every student in Class 8th and Jharkhand only has a GER of 57 for upper primary.
15. A happy thing to note is that there are at least 9 states where number of students in 1st standard is lesser than those currently in 8th and there are 3 others where this gap is less than 10%. Hence,the next generation in these States is likely to get better educational facilities. BIMARU states are still not out of the woods and need to invest more in primary education going forward given the high ratio of number of students currently entering the School system to those in upper primary.