Enrolment of girls increase in Himachal Pradesh

The enrolment of girls at the primary level is nearly as high as that of boys. The state has achieved gender equity in terms of enrolment of students at the primary level. The case is the same in terms of college enrolment rates and indicate this rise in gender equity.

Shimla: According to NITI Aayog's School Education Quality Index (SEQI), Himachal Pradesh ranks in the ninth position in terms of quality of school education. Besides, the stand out factor remains the improvement in gender equity as the ratio of girl child remains equal to that of boys in schools and colleges.

According to college enrollment data, in the academic year 2016-17, 67,688 girls enrolled in colleges, while enrolment numbers were 47, 041 for boys. This shows an increased focus in girls education in the state is increasing.

Besides, schemes including free education for girl child from poor economic background, have propelled the enrolment rates in the government colleges. In addition, many higher education institutions, including IITs, IIMs, IIIT, medical university and law university have seen the higher enrollment of girl child.

The report, titled 'The Success of Our Schools-School Education Quality Index' (SEQI) and jointly released by the Niti Aayog, Ministry of Human Resource Development and the World Bank, alongside sectoral experts, is based on indexing of states and Union Territories on the learning outcomes for school-going children.

SEQI, which used 2016-17 as the reference year and 2015-16 as the base year, was developed to evaluate the performance of states and Union Territories (UTs) in the school education sector.

Among the 20 Large States, 18 improved their overall performance between 2015-16 and 2016-17. The average improvement in these 18 states is 8.6 percentage points although there is a lot of variation around that average in terms of the fastest and slowest improving States. Due to this variation, many States that improved their overall performance scores still show a decline in rank.

Among eight smaller states, Manipur, Tripura and Goa bagged the top-three positions, respectively, followed by Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.

The index, prepared on the basis of 30 indicators, was divided into two broad categories -- outcomes that consisted of learning, access, infrastructure & facilities, and equity outcomes; and governance processes aiding outcomes.

Read: Kerala tops in NITI Aayog's school education rankings, UP at the bottom