GUWAHATI, July 7: Assam education minister Ranoj Pegu has categorically dismissed claims by Raijor Dal chief, Akhil Gogoi that government schools in Assam had lost 2,12,768 students over the past two years, and 25,67,793 students between the years, 2021-22 and 2024-25.
Speaking to mediapersons, the minister termed the claims of Gogoi as misleading even as he acknowledged a decline in enrollment of students in government schools, while attributing the decline to demographic changes and ongoing data cleansing.
“Assam has around 50 lakh students. If 25 lakh students had disappeared, it would imply a decline of 50 percent which is absurd. Anyone applying common sense will realise that such a claim is unrealistic,” he said, while replying to a media query.
Drawing a comparison of the decline nationally with trends in the state, Pegu said the enrolment of students in government and government-aided schools had declined nationally by 4.4 percent, compared to a 4.1 percent decline in Assam.
“There are several reasons for the decline, with a key reason being the removal of several ‘ghost’ students from the UDISE database. Over the past three years, we have been cleaning the database, and around three lakh names, without proper verification, have been removed,” Pegu said.
“Despite the 4.1 percent decline in Assam as against the all-India decline rate of 4.4 percent, Assam’s enrollment at the secondary level (Class IX to XII) has shown an increase by 0.9 percent against an all-India declining rate of – 0.6 percent,” the Minister said.
Notably, the dropout rate has declined across all levels of school education in Assam.
“Between the years, 2021–22 and 2024–25, the dropout rate decreased from 6.02 percent to 3.8 percent at the primary level, from 8.8 percent to 5.0 percent at the upper primary level, and from 20.3 percent to 17.5 percent at the secondary level,” Pegu stated.
“With the implementation of targeted interventions and focused schemes, we remain committed to reducing these rates even further,” he added.
