UDISE+ report

Why in news?

The Ministry of Education released a detailed report on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 on school education of India.

What is the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+)?

• It is a system of online data collection from the schools.
• It is developed by the Department of School Education & Literacy in 2018-19.
• It is developed to overcome the issues related to practice of manual data filling in paper format.
• Improvements have been made in the areas related to data capture, data mapping and data verification.
• For the 1^st time data on digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in library, were collected.
• This is done to align the UDISE+ with the NEP 2020 initiatives.

What are the findings of the report?

Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) – It measures the general level of participation of students at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education.  

• Gender Parity Index (GPI) of GER – Representation of females in school education is in line with representation of girls in population of corresponding age group.
• The GPI value at all level of school education are 1 or more.
• This implies the more participation of girls in the school education.
• Other findings – Only 44.85% of schools in India have access to computers & only 34% of schools have internet connection.
• Government schools continued to see a rise in enrolments for the 2^nd consecutive year since the COVID-19 outbreak, while private schools saw a decline.
• The decline in total schools is mainly due to closure of private and other management schools and grouping/clustering of schools by various States.

What is the status of infrastructure in Indian schools?

• During the 2021-2022, infrastructure of the schools has improved.
• This is mainly due to the implementation of the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

Samagra Shiksha scheme

• It envisages the school as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary to Senior Secondary levels.
• It subsumes the 3 erstwhile Schemes of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and Teacher Education (TE).
• Goal – To improve effectiveness of school, measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes.
• Vision – To ensure inclusive and equitable quality education from pre-school to senior secondary stage in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for Education.

References

1. Pib │The UDISE+ Report
2. The Hindu │ More schools closed in India during 2020-2021