Kerala 2005 - of Planning Commission

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2. School Education:
From Quantity to Quality
As highlighted in Chapter 2, in terms of quantity, school
education in Kerala has been consistently much higher
than in any other State. As of 2002-03, there were 12,271
schools in Kerala, with a total enrolment of 50 lakh (about
one-sixth of the State’s population). Kerala has one lower
primary school for every sq. km, and one high school
for every 4 sq. km. Facilities are more or less evenly
distributed in both urban and rural areas, according to
the Sixth All India Educational Survey conducted by
the NCERT in 1993-94. The survey indicates that about
90 per cent of the population has a lower primary school,
67.5 per cent an upper primary school, and 62 per cent a
secondary school within 1 km.
Institutional investment in facilities has been matched by
individual investment, which have resulted in impressive
growth in enrolment and average years of schooling.
By the 1980s, enrolment at the primary level was near
universal, including virtually no gender gap. Parents seem
to be unbiased in investing in education of girls and boys.
A variety of initiatives, including social reform, missionary
and State intervention in the early part of the last century,
laid the ground for gender parity in education. Importantly,
as early as in 1956-57, 41 per cent of the school teachers
in Kerala were women. The number has steadily increased
over the years, and now the percentage of women teachers
stands at 68. This can be contrasted with states like Bihar
or Uttar Pradesh, where the percentage is not greater than
20. While it is not well documented, it may well be that
the high percentage of female school teachers influenced
parents to send girls to school.
As indicated in Table 6.1, girls have lower drop-out rates
than boys in Kerala. In the table, we follow two sample
cohorts of 100 students each for each category of students
(in Government and aided schools) 1 – one enrolled in
1990-91 and the other enrolled in 1993-94. Out of all the
girls who enrolled in the first standard in 1993-94, only
9.82 per cent dropped out before reaching class X in 2002-
03, whereas 18.93 per cent boys enrolled in the same year
dropped out. This is a uniform pattern across all social
groups, though retention rates were much lower for boys
and girls belonging to Scheduled Tribes. A comparison
of the two sets of cohorts starting at two points in the
1990s shows that even though drop-out rates have come
to quite low levels, they continue to fall. And the decline
is slightly more (in absolute terms) for Scheduled Tribes
and Scheduled Castes than for others, which indicates a
narrowing of the differential among social groups.
There is some variation in the retention rates at the district
level in Government and aided schools (Table 6.2).
For some districts, a larger percentage of girls drop out by
class X. However, in districts like Palakkad, Wayanad and
Kasaragod, which had a low literacy rate, particularly of
girls/women, retention rates for girls have increased in the
1990s. Kasaragod and Wayanad show the lowest retention
rate for boys and girls; but it improved by 1993-94. These
are areas for further investigation.
Table 6.1a: Retention Pattern Across Gender and Social Groups: 1990-91 to 1999-2000
I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
All Communities
Boys 100 104.44 101.86 101.10 102.32 100.84 104.32 99.69 90.70 70.04
Girls 100 103.34 100.72 100.18 100.15 98.94 102.26 99.33 95.79 81.44
Total 100 103.90 101.31 100.65 101.26 99.91 103.31 99.52 93.19 75.62
Scheduled Castes
Boys 100 105.93 104.24 104.03 102.57 100.32 102.26 95.90 82.73 57.55
Girls 100 104.69 101.63 101.38 100.11 97.71 100.11 96.21 90.94 71.10
Total 100 105.32 102.96 102.73 101.36 99.04 101.20 96.05 86.76 64.20
Scheduled Tribes
Boys 100 94.20 87.90 83.08 75.46 65.66 62.84 55.34 43.75 28.65
Girls 100 96.31 91.06 84.64 74.95 68.23 66.25 60.47 51.92 39.33
Total 100 96.21 88.38 83.82 75.22 66.88 64.46 57.77 47.62 33.71
Source: Educational Statistics since Independence, Directorate of Public Instruction, 2004.
1 The analysis does not include the enrolment in the CBSE/KSE schools, data for which are not reported in the Kerala Economic
Review or other publications of the Government of Kerala.