The education minister on February 4, 2021, provided state-wise information about the number of students enrolled in different classes during the academic year 2018-19. Approximately 5.8 crore students were enrolled in Classes V, VIII and XI. 2,33,47,213 students were admitted in Class V, 2,12,05,004 students were enrolled in Class VIII and 1,28,75,015 students were admitted to Class XI. A state-wise distribution was presented in the parliament under Annexure-I.
Mr. Pokhriyal informed in the parliament that the government has organised a multitude of measures to encourage students to continue their education along with acquiring skills training. The Ministry of Education along with the Department of Education and Literacy is implementing the scheme of ‘Vocalisation of School Education’. This scheme comes under the ambit of ‘Samagra Shiksha’ which is an integrated scheme designed for school education.
‘Samagra Shiksha’ is a scheme sponsored by the central government. The primary objective of the scheme is to combine vocational education with conventional academic education with the intention of preparing a useful human resource. This resource shall be educated, employable and competitive, belonging to the different sectors of the country’s economy.
The education minister also went onto explain the aim and objective of vocational courses in the parliament. Vocational education is provided to the students belonging to classes 9 to 12 who choose vocational subject in schools coming under the umbrella of this scheme. As of now, this scheme is being implemented in 32 states and UTs comprising of 11,92,559 students. Furthermore, the state-wise distribution of these students was given under Annexure-II.
Bihar had the highest number of students in class 5 during the academic year 2018-19 i.e., 28,59,042 students. States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal had admitted more than 10 lakh students in class 5 each. The same trends were followed with respect to classes 8 and 11. In terms of vocational education, Chhattisgarh admitted the highest number of students in 2018-19 i.e., 2,91,430 students. Haryana and Rajasthan each had enrolled more than 1 lakh students for vocational courses.
