Last week, Chief Secretary of the state conducted a meeting with officials of  Education Department and exhorted them to find ways to address the issue of school dropouts in an effective way. Truly, it is a concern chasing Arunachal Pradesh for many years and sadly there is no immediate sign of improvement. This factor alone is a major contributor to the overall darkness of the state’s basic education scenario, alongside the continuing downward trend of pass percentages in board exams, currently being talked about more than the possible results of the on-going elections.

Not only Arunachal, the larger parts of the entire Northeast  is suffering from the alarming trend of school dropouts, particularly in primary level, supposed to be the foundation step of a child’s educational journey. Between 2016 and 2017  Arunachal Pradesh has recorded a 23.25% primary school dropout rate, the individual highest in country, against a national average of 6.35%. In upper primary level, where the average dropout rate nationally was 5.67% in the same period, it’s still a headache for the state where dropout rate was 12.81%. Also, while the national average of dropout percentage at secondary level during the above period was 22.13 %, for the state it was  29.93%. Coming to the last stage of school education, i.e higher secondary level, against the national average dropout rate of 13.09%  for this period,  Arunachal Pradesh with 22.46% has recorded the highest dropouts in the entire  Northeast region. And all these ‘hard truths’ came to light during the winter session of the parliament held in last January this year.

Although the country has made significant progress in raising enrolment rates of children reaching schools, the levels of success in preventing dropouts is way below that is expected from a welfare state. Most alarmingly, the dropout rates are distressingly sharp in primary level, always considered to be the most critical phase of learning. And among the multitude of factors, the three biggest reasons normally held responsible are poverty, availability, and accessibility,  each varying in with their own degrees of intensities from state to state. Another reason that is often attributed for school dropouts is the lack of basic infrastructure in schools like drinking water and toilets, the latter contributing most for quitting of the girl child from school.

In the state’s context, even if the above factors are very much in play,  the acute and those needing special care are not unknown. If lack of schools  & inadequacy of teachers are blameworthy causes, shabby infrastructures, both within school premises as well as that of the roads that pupils have to tread daily cannot be overlooked.

All possible solutions must be explored promptly, before the bother bulges beyond rectification.