Manipur witnessed an improvement in enrolment in government schools in Manipur with the proportion of children (age 6 to 14) enrolled in government school increasing from 28 per cent in 2018 to 32.8 per cent in 2022, according to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2022.
This is the highest enrollment recorded in government schools after 2008, where 33.2 per cent of the children across the state were enrolled in government schools. However, in comparison with neighbouring NE states, Manipur has the lowest government school enrolment as per the ASER report.
The ASER report was released on Wednesday, the survey of which was conducted in nine districts of Manipur comprising 262 villages and 4859 households.
ASER is an annual survey conducted by the education non-profit Pratham in rural areas of India. The survey was last conducted at this large scale in 2018.
The ASER 2022 survey was conducted in 17,002 government schools in 19,060 villages across 616 districts.
As per the report, in 2006, the all-India figure for the percentage of girls aged 11-14 years who were out of school stood at 10.3 per cent, falling over the following decade to 4.1 per cent in 2018. The proportion continued to drop. In 2022, the all-India figure for 11-14-year-old girls not enrolled in school stood at 2 percent. This figure is around four per cent only in Uttar Pradesh and is lower in all other states.
About 66.1 per cent children aged 6-14 years are enrolled in private schools in Manipur. There has been a slight shift towards government school enrolment over the years. In 2022, a slight increase of four per cent points is visible. And, an overall increase in the enrolment of young children in Anganwadis and government pre-primary schools were seen.
In Manipur, 29.8 per cent of three-year-olds were enrolled in Anganwadi Centre compared to 16.2 per cent in 2018. Among four-year-olds, Anganwadi enrolment marginally increased from 11.5 per cent in 2018 to 14.6 per cent in 2022.
The decrease in the proportion of girls not enrolled in school is even sharper among older girls in the 15-16 age group. In 2008, nationally, more than 20 per cent of girls in the 15-16 age group were not enrolled in school. Ten years later, in 2018, this figure decreased to 13.5 per cent.
The proportion of 15-16-year-old girls not enrolled continued to drop, standing at 7.9 per cent in 2022.
Only three states have more than 10 per cent of girls in this age group out of school: Madhya Pradesh (17%), Uttar Pradesh (15%), Chhattisgarh (11.2%) and Manipur the figure stands at 7.9%.
The report stated that paid tuition for children in Std I-VIII has been increasing over the years but there has been from 2018 to 2022, with the per centage increasing from 45.1 per cent in 2018 to 53.4 per cent in 2022.
Percentage of children in Std III in government and private who can read at Std II level dropped from 35.8 percent in 2018 to 30.4 percent in 2022. The drop is more significant for private schools where the percentage of children in Std III who could read a Std II level text reduced from 42.2 per cent in 2018 to 34.9 per cent in 2022. The drop was marginal for children in government school.
Proportion of children enrolled in Std V government and private schools who can at least read a Std II level text increased from 67.6 percent in 2018 to 69.5 percent in 2022. This is more visible in government schools where there has been an increase of 14.2 per cent from 50.6 per cent in 2018 to 64.4 per cent in 2022 than in private schools which show a marginal decline of 1.7 per cent from 74 per cent in 2018 to 72.3 per cent in 2022.
The proportion of children in Std VIII who can do division is more or less the same from 2018, 72.5 per cent to 71.1 per cent in 2022.
As per the report, it also stated that the proportion of government schools with less than 60 students enrolled has increased every year over the last decade in India. In Manipur, the proportion of government schools with less than 60 students has reduced marginally from 63.6% in 2018 to 59.5% in 2022.
In Manipur, the proportion of Std II classrooms observed to be sitting with the children from other grades in primary school was 48.7% in 2022 as compared to 50% in 2018. The proportion of STD IV classrooms observed to be sitting with children from other grades in upper primary schools was 30.4% in 2022 as compared to 36 % in 2018. Attendance for teachers stood at 71.8% in primary schools and 76.4% in Upper primary school in 2022. Student attendance for primary stood at 61.4% in 2022 and 59.1 % in upper primary school.
Nationally, small improvements are visible in all Right to Education-related indicators over 2018 levels. In Manipur, slight improvement is visible across indicators. However more attention needs to be paid to improving school facilities. The proportion of schools which served Mid-day meals on the day of visit was 48.4% in 2022 as compared to 46.4% in 2018. The proportion of schools where Drinking water is available stood at 9.7%. in 2022 as compared to 6.5 % in 2018. Toilet usable 58% in 2022 as compared to 44.9 % in 2018.
And, in India most children have received their textbooks for the current academic year. Textbooks had been distributed to all grades in 90.1% of primary schools and in 84.4% of upper primary schools.
In Manipur, the textbook was distributed in 89.3 % for the primary school and 85% for the upper primary school.
Overall, in India, about 80% of all primary schools had received a directive to implement Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) activities with their students and about the same proportion had at least 1 teacher who had received training on FLN.
In Manipur 61.6% of primary schools and 66.3% of upper primary schools have reported that at least one teacher has been trained on FLN.
