At least 26 percent of students enrolled in grade 9th in 2017 went out of the government schools system a year later, with the education department having no information whether the students continued their studies. As per official data accessed by Greater Kashmir the student enrolment in government schools in Kashmir districts decreased from 48923 in class 9th students in 2017 to 35915 in class 10th the next year, a decrease of 26.59 percent.
However it is yet to be found by the department whether the remaining 13008 students dropped out of school without joining grade 10th in 2018 or they continued their studies elsewhere. “The department doesn’t have any tracking system by which it can keep information about such students. Many a time it has been seen that some students take menial job of domestic help while as others are pushed to join labour industry owing to the poverty,” an official said.
The shocking figures came to fore after the department asked the chief education officers (CEOs) to submit the enrolment data of class 9th and 10th during the year 2017 and 2018. The directions were given after Greater Kashmir, reported this January that around 13000 students from government schools were “illegally stopped” from appearing in the exams as regular students in 2018 class 10th exams, so that the performance of government schools appears better at the time of declaration of results. In Srinagar district, around 2440 students were enrolled in class 9th in 2017 out of which 2290 appeared in the annual exams and 1825 were declared as qualified by the State Institute of Education (SIE) Kashmir.
However, only 1511 students were enrolled in class 10th during 2018 of which 1229 appeared in annual JKBOSE exams, with only 756 qualifying it. The district witnessed a decrease by almost 35 percent from class 9th to 10th in one year. As part of the policy, students with potential to learn but fail to qualify the annual class 9th exams are supposed to be promoted to class 10th after undergoing remedial classes in their respective schools during the winter break.
“But the students discontinue their studies decreasing the enrolment in schools which throws a major challenge for the department,” the official said. While the enrolment has decreased by 26.59 percent in one year from 2017 to 2018, the department is yet to assess the enrolment of students this year in class 10th. But the official figures suggest that 47675 students were enrolled in class 9th during the academic year 2018. Out of this 45257 students have appeared in annual class 9th exams. “It is expected that the same number of students should get registered with the JK Board of School Education (BOSE) for class 10th exams this year (2019),” the official said.
Meanwhile, the decline in the enrolment, as the students move from class 9th to 10th has deflated the government claims of improvement in student population in government-run schools. In Kupwara district around 7379 students were enrolled in class 9th during 2017 of which 7132 appeared in the annual exams and 6297 were declared as qualified. However, only 5591 students were enrolled in class 10th during 2018 of which 4345 appeared in annual JKBOSE exams with only 2403 qualifying it. The district witnessed a decrease by almost 24.24 percent from class 9th to 10th in one year. The situation in other district is no different than Kupwara.
Baramulla witnessed a decrease by 23.55 in enrolment of students from class 9th to 10th in one year. Besides the decrease in the student enrolment, the official figures have also revealed that around 8927 students were detained from appearing as regular students in class 10th JKBOSE exams. Even if the school heads claim to have barred the students for falling short of attendance but the fact is that the schools detain students as regular students to improve the pass percentage in the exams.
To justify the detention of the students, the school heads earlier claimed that most of the students volunteered to appear as private students due to which the number of students appearing in annual exams got decreased. “The report was assessed by the government and it was sent to Chairperson JKBOSE for further examination. But there was no headway in it as BOSE is yet to assess it and submit a report to the government,” an official said.