The deeper meaning of declining school enrollment

• India’s demographic dividend, a result of its burgeoning youth population, is beginning to decline.

• The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data for 2022-23 and 2023-24 shows a 6% drop in school enrolment since 2018-19.

• Official sources attribute the decline to improved data collection, claiming that seeding Aadhaar numbers with enrolment eliminates multiple enrolments.

• However, a decade-long analysis of data (2014-15 to 2023-24) shows a grim picture, with school enrolment plummeting by 24.51 million, or 9.45%, over the past decade.

• Elementary-level enrolment has fallen by 18.7 million (13.45%), while secondary-level enrolment declined by 1.43 million (3.75%).

• Private unaided schools have seen a marginal increase in enrolment, but their senior secondary-level enrolment surged by 1.41 million (15.55%).

• The decline in enrolment across the board and persisted since 2014-15, particularly at the elementary levels, is a systematic transition.

• The decline in the population in the age group of 6-17 years has also declined by 17.30 million (5.78%) over the past decade.

• The number of schools in the country has declined by 79,109, from 1.55 million in 2017-18 to 1.47 million in 2023-14, a decline of 5.1%.

• The persistent plummeting of school enrolment is mainly due to demographic changes, which do not augur well for the country.

• The transition to a shrinking working-age population is happening sooner than expected, and India may see its population age even before becoming rich.