Future does not seem well for the State as around five in every ten students enrolled in class eight drop out before sitting for their Matric exams - which educationists categorise as passport to productive career. The bleak scenario looks quite alarming if one further goes by the ASER - 2014 report that finds out that around one-fourth (24 per cent) children in the age-group of 15-16 years are out of mainstream education in the State.
According to latest report on secondary education in Odisha by the National University for Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA), the dropout rate in the secondary education stream in the State is almost 50 per cent. If ASER report’s figure of 24 per cent children out of secondary school education is added, then the scary statistics that stares at is almost 74 per cent children in the age-group of 12-16 years in Odisha stay out of the secondary education loop. This comes as a big shocker for the State when universalisation of education for children in the age-group of 6 - 15 years has been a prime Constitutional objective.
According to the 2014 data on out- of- school children in the age group of 6 - 13 years available with the School and Mass Education Department (SME), the out-of- school children numbers for the boys in the year 2014 have gone up to 2, 09,883 from 2,08,635 in 2009. However, the number of girls out of school in the same age group has shown a decline. The ASER 2014, however, finds that out- of- school girls in 15-16 yrs age group is marginally higher than the boys in Odisha.