U-DISE report shows improvement in student enrolment in private, govt-aided schools in Maharashtra
Student enrolments in both private and government-aided schools in Maharashtra saw a slight improvement during 2021-22, showing signs of recovery after the sharp drop in enrolments during the Covid-19 period.
The Unified District System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report, which was released Friday morning for all states, also showed that 2,25,86,695 students from pre-primary to Class XII were enrolled in 1.09 lakh schools in Maharashtra, an improvement of 74,856 compared to student enrolment numbers during 2019-2020 and 2020-21, the years of extended school closures and shift to online education, during the pandemic.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic had brought with it multiple issues in the education sector such as disparity in access to devices and Internet facility for online education and inability by parents to pay fees due to financial constraints which had an adverse effect on student enrolment numbers. These issues reflected in the U-DISE report for 2020-21, which showed 2,25,11,839 students were enrolled from pre-primary to Class XII in that year compared to 2,30,54,357, in 2019-2020, indicating a drop of 5.42 lakh students.
One of the reasons for the improvement could be the use of technology for teaching which enabled teachers to conduct remote classes as well as bring innovations in teaching. In terms of technology, Maharashtra schools lead the country revealed the U-DISE data as it had the highest number of computers being used for pedagogical purposes – 27,327 in 1.09 lakh schools.
According to the latest report of 2021-2022, 48 per cent or nearly one in two schools had an Internet connection, a sharp improvement from the last U-DISE report, in which only 36 percent of schools had Internet facilities. In one year alone, Internet facilities expanded to 12 per cent of the 1.09 lakh schools in Maharashtra. In terms of management, the latest U-DISE report showed that 85.6 per cent private unaided schools in Maharashtra had Internet connections, a slight improvement from last year when the same percentage was 83. However, the disparity between government and private schools seems to have lessened as compared to 11.82 per cent government-run schools which had Internet access last year was 28.3 per cent in the latest report.
Amongst the other indicators of the U-DISE report was that 95 per cent schools in Maharashtra had electricity connection but in only 85 per cent schools, the electricity connection was functional.
