• The enrolment of students in pre-primary level and Class 1 declined by nearly 29 lakh and 18 lakh respectively in 2020-21 as compared to 2019-20 owing to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Although the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is cross-cutting, this is particularly noticed in the enrolment of young and vulnerable kids like pre-primary, Class 1 and Children With Special Needs (CWSN) and it may be attributed to postponement of admissions due to COVID-19.

• This was stated in the report by Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2020-21 on school education in India.

The significance of educational management information system

• The Indian school education system is one of the largest in the world with more than 15 lakh schools, nearly 97 lakh teachers and nearly 26.5 crore students of pre-primary to higher secondary level from varied socio-economic backgrounds. 

• A robust, real time and credible information collection mechanism is an essential pre-requisite for an objective evaluation of the system, based on which specific interventions for improvement can be designed.

• Timely and accurate data is the basis of sound and effective planning and decision-making. Towards this end, the establishment of a well-functioning and sustainable educational management information system is of utmost importance today. 

Evolution of UDISE+

• In early 1990s, as part of the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) national endeavour, a school based computerized information system was designed and developed. Education Management Information System (EMIS), called the District Information System for Education (DISE) was created for Classes 1 to 5 for planning and monitoring the DPEP over 42 districts in seven selected states. 

• Over the years, this was expanded to cover the entire elementary education system in India. 

• In 2008-09, with the introduction of the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), a separate and dedicated Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) was started for Classes 9 to 12. 

• Subsequently, in 2012-13, the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) was launched by integrating the DISE and SEMIS. 

• The UDISE system became the only source of data for the school education system with respect to schools, teachers and student enrolment.

• It became one of the largest management information systems on school education covering more than 1.5 million schools, more than 9.6 million teachers and more than 264 million children.

• Under the UDISE system, the schools used to feed the data manually at the school level in paper version of the Data Capture Format (DCF) with reference date of September 30 of each year. 

• With an aim to overcome the limitations of the UDISE system, the Department of School Education Literacy (DoSEL) developed the UDISE+ system with many unique features and introduced it from 2018-19.

• UDISE+ has a mandate of collecting information from all recognised and unrecognised schools imparting formal education from pre-primary to Class 12.

• Information collected through the digital platform of UDISE+, is utilised for the planning, optimised resource allocation and implementation of various education-related programs and assessments of progress made.

• UDISE+, collects information through an online Data Collection Form (DCF) on parameters ranging from school, infrastructure, teachers, enrolments, examination results, etc.

• The schools which get onboarded successfully on the platform are provided a UDISE Code, which acts as a national level unique identifier. 

• Ever since its introduction, UDISE+ has acquired the status of the official statistics system of the ministry of education and is now operational in all the districts of the country.

Key points of UDISE+ 2020-21 report:

• The total enrolment in 2020-21 from primary to higher secondary levels of school education was a little over 25.38 crore. There is an increase of 28.32 lakh enrolments as compared to the 25.10 crore enrolment in 2019-20.

• Enrolment for boys was 13.17 crore and that of the girls was 12.21 crore. There is an increase in the number of girls enrolled in primary to higher secondary by 11.8 lakh compared to the enrolment of girls in 2019-20.

• At all the levels above primary — which means upper primary, secondary and higher secondary —  school enrolment has increased, showing an improvement in the ability of the system to retain more and more children in the system of school education over time.

• Total number of teachers in 2020-21 was 96.96 lakh, an increase when compared to the total number of teachers in 2019-20 (96.87 lakh).

• In 2020-21 the Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) stood at 26 for primary, 19 for upper primary, 18 for secondary and 26 for higher secondary, showing an improvement since 2018-19. The PTR for primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary was 28, 20, 21, and 30 respectively during 2018-19.

• The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) has improved in 2020-21 at all levels of school education compared to 2019-20. The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) compares the enrolment in a specific level of education to the population of the age-group which is most age-appropriate for that level of education. For example, the GER of primary is student enrolment in Class 1 to 5 expressed as a percentage of population in age group 6-10 years. Similarly, GER of upper primary is enrolment in Class 6-8 expressed as a percentage of population in age group 11-13 years, and so on. 

Improvements in school infrastructure

• The report also stated that infrastructural facilities like functional electricity, functional drinking water have also seen progress in 2020-21.

• Schools with functional electricity have made impressive progress during 2020-21 with a net addition of 57,799 schools provided electricity.

• Now 84 per cent of the total schools have functional electricity facility in comparison with 73.85 per cent in 2018-19 showing remarkable improvement of 10.15 per cent during the period.

• Percentage of the school with functional girl’s toilet facility saw a minor increase  to 93.91 per cent in 2020-21 from 93.2 per cent in 2019-20 by adding the facility in additional 11,933 schools during the year.

• Number of schools having functional computers increased to 6 lakh in 2020-21 from 5.5 lakh in 2019-20 showing an increase of 3 per cent. Now, 40 per cent of the schools have functional computers.

• Number of schools having internet facility increased to 3.7 lakh in 2020-21 from 3.36 lakh in 2019-20 with an increase of 2.6 per cent.

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