Madhya Pradesh Congress questions govt over school dropout rates, teacher vacancies

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari on Wednesday targeted the BJP governments over gaps in school and higher education, citing large-scale dropouts, vacant teaching posts and declining enrolment as evidence of challenges facing the country’s youth.

Patwari’s remarks came three days ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s scheduled visit to Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on September 19 for the party’s ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ programme, which is focused on issues concerning students and youth.

Addressing a press conference here, Patwari said the country could not benefit from its demographic dividend unless young people received access to quality education, skills and employment. He cited data from AISHE, UDISE+, the Economic Survey and NITI Aayog to claim that more than 10 crore youths in the country were outside higher education, around 12 crore children were not completing school education, and nearly 8.7 crore youth were not in the education, employment or training category.

According to the data presented by him, only 47.2 per cent of children entering Class 1 reach Class 12. Patwari claimed that the number of government schools declined by around 1.02 lakh nationally between 2014-15 and 2025-26.

Madhya Pradesh accounted for a net reduction of around 30,650 government schools during the period, while 69,667 teacher posts were vacant in the state, Patwari said.

He also cited 2,269 single-teacher schools in Madhya Pradesh, where around 2.29 lakh children were enrolled.

Nationally, 1,00,843 such schools were reported in the presentation. “India’s young population can become the country’s biggest strength, but for this, every child must get a school, every youth must get higher education and skills, and young people must get employment opportunities,” Patwari said.

On higher education, he said the Gross Enrolment Ratio was around 30 per cent, leaving nearly 10.5 crore youth outside its coverage.

In Madhya Pradesh’s 17 government universities, 1,585 of 1,949 sanctioned posts were stated to be vacant. “When the window for benefiting from the demographic dividend is becoming increasingly limited, the government must explain its time-bound strategy to secure this opportunity through education, skills and employment,” Patwari said.

The Congress demanded a white paper on the education system, filling of vacant teaching posts and a time-bound roadmap from education to employment.

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