School enrolment has dropped for the third consecutive year, with the government’s latest data showing a dip of 11 lakh in enrolment over 2023-24. The drop in enrolment is led by government and government-aided schools while enrolment in private schools went up in this period.The Education Ministry’s UDISE+ data — which tracks and monitors school education parameters from the pre-primary to the higher secondary levels — shows that total enrolment in 2024-25 dropped to 24.69 crore from 24.80 crore in 2023-24 and 25.18 crore in 2022-23.The first year that UDISE+ data showed a fall in enrolment was in 2022-23 — when schools opened after the pandemic induced lockdown. Ministry officials had then attributed the drop — of over a crore compared to the average of the previous four years — to a change in the data collection method. From 2022-23 onwards, UDISE+ data is being collected as records of individual students instead of aggregate numbers at the school level. This change in methodology may have resulted in the weeding out of duplicate entries, officials had said.Releasing the latest UDISE+ data on Thursday, a senior official in the Education Ministry attributed the drop in enrolment data for the third consecutive year to “demographic shifts with falling birth rates”. The official, however, said only data from a fresh Census can confirm if a demographic shift was behind the drop in the primary school-going population.Total enrolment in 2024-25 dropped by a marginal figure of around 0.5% (11.13 lakh students) compared to 2023-24.While government school enrolment has steadily dropped over the past three years, private school enrolment has seen a rise. Government school enrolment dropped from 13.62 crore in 2022-23 to 12.75 crore in 2023-24 and 12.16 crore in 2024-25. Private school enrolment, meanwhile, rose from 8.42 crore in 2022-23 to 9 crore in 2023-24, and 9.59 crore in 2024-25.Enrolment in private schools accounted for 39% of the total enrolment in 2024-25, the highest that this figure has been from 2018-19 onwards, when it ranged from 33-37%.Story continues below this adThe number of government schools fell to 10.13 lakh in 2024-25, from 10.18 lakh in 2023-24. Private schools, however, saw a rise (3.79 lakh in 2024-25 vs 3.31 lakh in 2023-24).The drop in enrolment in 2024-25 compared to the previous year is in the primary classes (classes 1 to 5). At all other levels — pre-primary, upper primary (classes 6-8), secondary (classes 9-10), and higher secondary (classes 11-12) — enrolment has seen marginal increases.Officials in the ministry also pointed to a decline in the dropout rate in 2024-25 compared to 2022-23. For the secondary level — where dropouts have been a concern — the dropout rate has fallen from 13.8% in 2022-23 to 8.2% in 2024-25.The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) — which is the enrolment at a level of education compared to the population of the age-group appropriate for that level — shows that GER at the foundational stage (pre-primary to class 2) has remained nearly the same in 2024-25 (41.4%) over the previous year 2023-24 (41.5%). At the preparatory level (classes 3-5), the GER saw a marginal fall in 2024-25 (95.4%) vs 2023-24 (96.5%). At the middle (classes 6-8), and secondary (classes 9-12), the GER has increased compared to 2023-24.Story continues below this adOn GER, the official pointed out that the figure is based on the ‘projected population’ estimated from the 2011 census, and added that a fresh census could provide more accurate figures.Enrolment among boys fell in 2024-25 — 12.76 crore when compared to 12.87 crore in 2023-24. In contrast, the figure rose marginally among girls —from 11,93,01,237 in 2023-24 to 11,93,34,162 in 2024-25.