95.07 lakh teachers are engaged in school education during 2021-22 out of which more than 51% are female teachers. This was stated in a detailed report released by the Ministry of Education on Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2021-22 on school education of India.
The UDISE+ system of online data collection from the schools was developed by Department of School Education & Literacy in the year 2018-19 to overcome the issues related to erstwhile practice of manual data filling in paper format.
The report also showed that in 2021-22, the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) stood at 26 for primary, 19 for upper primary, 18 for secondary and 27 for higher secondary, showing an improvement since 2018-19. The PTR for primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary was 28, 19, 21, and 30 respectively during 2018-19.
In UDISE+ system, improvements have been made particularly in the areas related to data capture, data mapping and data verification.
According to the report, the total number of students enrolled in school education from primary to higher secondary in 2021-22 stood at 25.57 crore as compared to 25.38 crore enrolment in 2020-21.
The total number of Scheduled caste (SC) enrolment increased to 4.82 Crore in 2021-22 as compared to 4.78 Crore in 2020-21. Similarly, total Scheduled Tribe (ST) enrolment increased to 2.51 crore in 2021-22 from 2.49 crore in 2020-21. Total other backward students (OBC) also increased to 11.48 crore in 2021-22 from 11.35 crore in 2020-21.
The UDISE+ showed that the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), which measures the general level of participation, has made a significant improvement from 53.8% in 2021-21 to 57.6% in 2021-22 at primary, upper primary, and higher secondary levels of school education.
Further, the total enrolment of Children with Special Needs (CWSN) in 2021-22 stands at 22.67 lakh as compared to 21.91 lakh in 2020-21 showing an improvement of 3.45% over 2020-21.
In 2021-22 over 12.29 crore girls are enrolled in primary to higher secondary showing an increase of 8.19 lakh compared to the enrolment of girls in 2020-21, the report stated.
The Gender Parity Index (GPI) of GER shows the 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 one or more implying more participation of girls in the school education.
According to the report, the total number of schools in 2021-22 stood at 14.89 lakhs as compared to 15.09 lakhs in 2020-21. The decline in total schools is mainly due to closure of private and other management schools and grouping/ clustering of schools by various States.
In UDISE+ 2021-22, additional data on important indicators viz., digital library, peer learning, hard spot identification, number of books available in school library, etc have been collected for the first time to align with the NEP 2020 initiatives.
The report shows the impact of Samagra Shiksha scheme in school infrastructures across the country stating that 89.3% schools have electricity connection, 98.2% has drinking water provisions, 77% of the schools have playgrounds and there is library/ reading room/ reading corner in 87.3%.
Only 27% of schools have toilets accessible by CWSN, while 49.7% have ramps with handrail.
As for the sustainable environment initiatives for school which the Ministry of Education is pushing for, 27.7% schools have kitchen gardens while only 21% schools harvest rainwater.
