New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday confirmed that it had not initiated any structured effort to implement pre-metric scholarships for classes 1 to 8. Scholarships are being given from either the Union government or the respective state governments to reduce the school drop-out rates.
Trinamool Lok Sabha member from Diamond Harbour Abhishek Banerjee asked the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment whether the government has commissioned a study to gauge the effects of pre-metric scholarships for classes 1 to 8 on drop-out rates.
The junior minister A Narayanaswamy answered this Unstarred question, “The Department has not commissioned any study to gauge the effects of pre-metric scholarships for classes 1 to 8 on drop-out rates.”
Further, the MoS, Social Justice and Empowerment mentioned that the centre has no data on whether the enrolment has been increased in classes 1 to 8, especially, students from Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Other Backward Classes (OBC).
However, the West Bengal government’s Backward Classes Welfare Department provides pre-matric scholarships to SC students, classes 9 and 10 to provide financial assistance to the students to minimise the incidence of drop-out.
Moreover, as per data, the drop-out rate at the primary level- classes 1 to 5, has gone up to 1.5 per cent in the academic year 2021-22, up from 0.8 per cent in 2020-21. At the upper primary level- classes 6 to 8, the drop-out rate has gone up to 3 per cent in 2021-22, compared to 1.9 per cent in the year 2020-21.
In fact, the drop-out rate is the highest in three years at the upper primary level. The report from 2019-20 shows the drop-out rate was 2.6 per cent, which went down to 1.9 per cent in 2020-21 and then shot back up again to 3 per cent in 2021-22.
As per data, the dropout rate for girls has been higher than that of boys at this level.