Parliament Question: Chronic absenteeism in schools

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION & LITERACY RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO-2896 ANSWERED ON 18.03.2026 Chronic absenteeism in schools 2896 Shri Rajinder Gupta: Will the Minister of Education be pleased to state: (a) whether Government maintains data on chronic absenteeism rates in schools across States and Union Territories; (b) if so, the State-wise/UT-wise details thereof and the primary causes identified; (c) whether any study has been conducted to assess the impact of absenteeism on learning outcomes; (d) the challenges faced in tracking and addressing absenteeism, particularly in rural and tribal areas; and (e) the measures proposed to reduce chronic absenteeism and improve school retention rates in the country? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (SHRI JAYANT CHAUDHARY) (a) & (b): Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. As per UDISE+ (Unified District Information System for Education Plus), State/UT wise and year-wise dropout rates at primary, upper-primary and secondary level for the year 2024-25 is available at https://www.education.gov.in/en/parl_ques. As per report titled ‘Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS)’ for the year 2023-24 released by Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the major reasons for the students who never attended the schools are to supplement household income, to attend domestic chores, education not considered necessary, etc. (c): The PARAKH Rashtriya Sarvekshan 2024, conducted in December 2024 by the National Assessment Centre, PARAKH (NCERT), under the Ministry of Education, assessed baseline competency development in students of Grades 3, 6, and 9 as per the National Education Policy 2020. Over 21.15 lakh students and 2.70 lakh teachers from more than 74,000 schools across 781 districts participated. National, State, and District-level report cards are available at https://dashboard.parakh.ncert.gov.in/en. (d): Based on the recommendations of National Education Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), w.e.f 2022-23 UDISE+ has been revitalized, to capture individual student wise data and created student’s registry. The Department of School Education & Literacy (DoSE&L) has developed UDISE+ portal where in individual Schools fills the data as per Data Capture Format (DCF), which is further validated and verified by Block Resource/ Cluster Resource person. Thereafter, this data is moved to District Officerswho again verify the correctness of the data and finally the data has to be certified by State Project Director (SPD) of the State. (e): Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. The Central Government assist States and UTs through the Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Samagra Shiksha and hot cooked meal provided from Balvatika to class 8 under Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) Yojna. Financial assistance/grant is also provided to the States and UTs for various activities to reduce dropout and increase enrolment in Government schools, which include opening/strengthening of new schools up to Senior Secondary level, strengthening school infrastructure, setting up and up gradation and running of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBV) upto class 12, setting up of residential schools/hostels named Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Avasiya Vidyalayas, hostels under Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan (PM-JANMAN) and Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA), transport allowance, undertaking enrolment drives, seasonal hostels/residential camps, provision of vocational education and ICT facilities in schools, providing free text books and free uniform, transport/escort facility, etc. Government has also taken initiatives such as Vidya Samiksha Kendra (VSK) and implementation of Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR) ID to monitor the drop out and other education indicators. VSK has been developed with strategies designed to enhance the effectiveness of monitoring of educational initiatives and their eventual outcomes. A key feature of VSK is tracking of dropout students, monitoring of students migrating from one school to the other, progress of learning outcomes and real-time monitoring of various interventions, aimed at improving access, students' academic performance and enhancing teachers' accountability in schools. APAAR, as part of the 'One Nation, One Student ID' programme, is a 12-digit lifelong student ID that is linked to Aadhar. ******