PANJIM: Goa’s school net enrollment ratio (NER) at primary and upper primary level is among the highest in the country with the state second only to Nagaland and higher than the state with the highest literacy rate – Kerala, a government study shows.
According to the Government of India report for the year 2013-14, the Goan NER at primary level stood at 97.51 per cent second after Nagaland’s impressive 99.30 percent. However, enrollment data at the upper primary level slipped to 89.28 percent. Delhi tops this chart with enrollment ratio touching 93.26 per cent.
The NER defined by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics refers to enrollment of the official age-group for a given level of education expressed as a percentage of the corresponding population. The age group has been divided as 6-10 years for primary education and 11to 13 years for upper primary.
The data further indicates that Kerala, which has the highest literacy rate, has NER recorded at 85.78 per cent at the primary and 82.26 per cent at the upper primary level. Interestingly, percentage of the enrollment data in Jammu & Kashmir is one of the worst with 68.99 percent and 55.32 percent at primary and upper primary education respectively.
According to the overall data, in all, 10 states and Union territories had an NER of 90 per cent and above for primary education. Moreover, the NER for boys ranged between 68.28 per cent in J&K and 96.96 per cent in Goa, for girls it ranged between 69.79 per cent in J&K and 98.11 percent in Goa. At the upper primary level, Goa recorded 87.89 percent boys’ enrollment and a little higher 90.81 percent enrollment of girls during the last academic year.
In a separate study on gender and regional disparities in adult literacy rates, the gender gap in Goa is among seven states and Union territories to achieve the target of reducing gender gap to less than 10 percentage points. As per records, Kerala ranks the highest as it has achieved reducing the gap to 4.6 PP followed by Mizoram 4.8, Meghalya recording the percentage points at 5.1, Nagaland 8.4, Lakshadweep and Goa on par at 9.1 pp each and Andaman & Nicobar Islands managing to reduce gap in adult literacy rates at 9.5 pp.
