Fact Check: Modi Falsely Claims Gujarat School Dropout Rate to be Less Than 1%

While virtually inaugurating Sardardham Bhawan in Ahmedabad on September 11, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi claimed that the school dropout rate has decreased to less than 1% in Gujarat.

“He [Modi] added that as a result of continuous efforts of many years that in Gujarat today where on one side school dropout rate has decreased to less than 1%, and at the same time, lakhs of youths have been provided a new future through different schemes.” Read by the press release of the event.

Fact-Check:

On August 2, 2021, Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, in an answer given in the Lok Sabha, said dropout rates are calculated considering both government and private schools to take care of inter school movements of students. In this, Pradhan mentioned state-wise dropout rates as per Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) 2019-20.

The latest data of UDISE+ is from 2019-20, which shows that the dropout rate for primary level (Grades 1 to 5) was 1%, for upper primary (Grades 6 to 8) was 5.2%, and secondary level (Grades 9 and 10) was 23.7%. Which clearly tells that out of every 100 students in Grades 9 and 10, over 23 students dropped out of school.

Further, the UDISE dashboard shows dropout rate for secondary level has increased by more than 3% in 2019-20 from 20.61% in 2017-18, and in the same period, dropout rate for primary level reduced from 1.67% to 1%.

Considering the data provided by UDISE+ the dropout rate is clearly not below 1% and hence to be considered as falsely claimed.