More than 2.96 crore school students in 23 states are without digital devices. This is more than 70% of Jammu and Kashmir without digital devices; the information was given by the Ministry of Education to the Lok Sabha on Monday.
These details were shared in Parliament by the Ministry of Education in response to a written question, “Have some states seen a sharp drop in the number of students enrolling in private schools compared to pre-pandemic years?”
With 1.43 crore, Bihar has the highest number of children without digital devices, according to data shared by the ministry. Sharing in percentage, the ministry informed the House that most of the students in Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir are without digital devices.
States like Assam, Jharkhand and Karnataka have more than 30 lakh children without access to digital devices, while Uttarakhand has 21 lakh such children. Other states with over 10 lakh children without digital devices are Haryana, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, while Kerala has 9.5 lakh children in this category.
The ministry also informed that the dropout rate at secondary level in the academic session 2019-20 has been 16.1% and in case of boys, 17%. Some of the states with higher than the national school dropout rate are Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Maharashtra.
