7 North Eastern states have highest dropout rates at primary level: UDISE Report

NEW DELHI: The states of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Mizoram have the highest dropout rates in the country at the primary level, data released by the education ministry through the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2020-21, revealed.

All of the seven sister states – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura – have high dropout rates at the primary level.

Manipur has the highest dropout rate with 8.6 percentage students dropping out at primary level.

The school dropout rates for Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram are at 8.3 percent and 8.1 percent respectively. Meghalaya and Nagaland also have high dropout rates of 7.4 percent and 5.9 percent at the primary level, respectively.

Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal recorded zero dropouts at the primary level, according to the education ministry’s data.

At the secondary level, 23 states and union territories recorded dropout rates in the double figures.

Assam recorded the highest dropout rate in the country with a staggering 31 percent of students dropping out at the secondary level. Tripura (29.8%), Meghalaya (27.9%), Madhya Pradesh (26.1%), Nagaland (24.4%) and Haryana (23.3%) also recorded high dropout rates.

While Jammu and Kashmir (3.5%) and Goa(5.9)% had relatively lower dropout rates among the states, Madhya Pradesh is the only state with a dropout rate of zero at the secondary level, as per the UDISE data.

Dropout rates by gender

For girls at the primary level, Manipur (8.2%), Mizoram (7.6%) and Arunachal Pradesh (6.8%) had the worst dropout rates in the country.

Dropout rates for boys were higher than for girls in most states at the primary level.

Arunachal Pradesh (9.8%), Manipur (9%) and Meghalaya (8.7%) have the worst dropout rates for boys at the primary level.

At the secondary level, Assam (32.1%), Tripura (28.3%) and Meghalaya (27.1%) had the worst dropout rates for girls. For boys, the same three states, Tripura (31.3%), Assam (29.7%) and Meghalaya (28.9%) were the worst performers.