There has been an increase in the drop-out rate of students in Delhi state and municipal schools
In an attempt to avoid the drop in pass percentage of students in board classes, a large number of students of Class 9 and 11 are being deliberately held back every year in the Delhi government and state’s municipal corporation schools, says a recent report based on information collected by RTI.
The report also links drop in pass percentages to the Central government’s no-detention policy, under which students are not held back at the same level till Class 8. “At least 17 per cent students in state government and MCD schools did not go to Class 10 from Class 9 in the 2013-14 academic session. The figure then rose to 43.5 per cent and then 50 per cent in sessions 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively,” states the first annual report on the state of public (school) education in Delhi issued by NGO Praja foundation on Thursday.
Similarly, 23 per cent of students were not promoted to Class 12 during 2013-2014, while the figure was 35 and 20 per cent for the sessions 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 respectively, it further states. “One of the obvious reasons for schools deliberately holding back students is so that their performance in terms of the drop in pass percentage of students does not reflect in Class 10 and 12 results,” says Milind Mhaske, Project Director, Praja.
“Another crucial conclusion that can be drawn from the figures is that the quality of education in state and municipal schools is really poor,” he said.
With the no-detention policy there was a system of Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation that was supposed to assess students at every level, despite no examinations. “No serious evaluation has been done by the schools in the last few years and that is why when these students clear exams up to level VIII and reach level IX, it becomes difficult for them to even understand their syllabus,” Mhaske said.
Among other crucial findings of the report, is the substantial jump in the drop-out rate and decline in enrolment rate of the students in 1009 Delhi state schools and 1709 municipal schools.
“Between academic years 2013-14 and 2015-16 the enrolment number fell down by 1,51,514 in MCD and Delhi government schools, and as many as 1,45,161 students dropped out from these schools during the course of time,” it states.
Whereas in terms of pass percentage, while state government schools recorded a decline of nearly 10 per cent in Class 10 from 99.09 per cent in March 2011 to 89.25 per cent in March 2016, Class 12 saw a marginal improvement by over a per cent from 87.54 per cent in March 2011 to 88.91 per cent in 2016. Also, the pass percentage for Class 12 in 2016 for state government schools is higher than private schools by over two per cent.
ALARMING NUMBERS
Percentage of students not promoted to Class 10:
2013-14: 17 per cent
2014-15: 43.per cent
2015-16: 50 per cent
Percentage of students not promoted to Class 12:
2013-2014: 23 per cent
2014-2015: 35 per cent
2015-2016: 20 per cent
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