The Central government has told the Parliament that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh have witnessed a decline in student enrolment in government schools in 2023 to 2024 compared to the previous year.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed the Lok Sabha that enrolment in Jammu and Kashmir government schools dropped from 1,454,668 in 2022-23 to 1,421,643 in 2023-24.
“Similarly, Ladakh recorded a decline from 28,667 students in 2022-23 to 26,275 in 2023-24,” he added.
The trend is concerning but also acknowledged for the fact that private institutions are offering better education, with better infrastructure and more career-oriented and focused learning compared to government-run schools.
However, if the trend continues the way the projections have been made, there would soon be catastrophic implications hitting the education infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
Though private schools are taking the lead in the overall enrolment surge, issues with government-run schools and their mode of operation would soon make them defunct; for that reason, parents in UT have less faith in the government-run schools.
The big talk and less application of the policies have immensely hit Jammu and Kashmir, though there was some improvement noticed in the higher education government institutions. The erosion of trust in the government schools has happened over the last decade.
He said the decline in enrolment in some states and UTs, including J&K and Ladakh, may reflect a statistical shift, as Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) moved from aggregated data to individual student-level data collection from 2022-23 onwards.
To address enrolment issues, he listed several interventions under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme, including residential schools, free textbooks and uniforms, transport facilities, special hostels, and mid-day meals under the PM POSHAN scheme.
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