School dropouts: two answers ten days apart put India's secondary dropout rate for 2025-26 at 9.5% and at 7.0%

What was asked

On 3 August 2026 the Lok Sabha asked the Ministry of Education (Unstarred Question 2465) for the students who left school while moving from one stage to the next under the National Education Policy 2020, by state, gender and social category, the reasons, and the districts with higher dropout. The answer gives dropout and transition rates by stage and gender for 2022-23 to 2025-26.

On 10 August 2026 it asked the same ministry (Unstarred Question 3603) for the dropout rate at the primary, secondary and higher secondary levels in the last five years, by state. The answer gives rates at the “Primary” and “Secondary” levels for 2021-22 to 2025-26. Both answers cite UDISE+.

Two rates for the same year

For 2025-26, the answer of 10 August 2026 puts India’s secondary dropout rate at 9.5%. The answer of 3 August 2026 puts the dropout rate at the secondary stage, which it defines as Class IX to XII, at 7.0%. The later answer’s table does not say which classes its “Secondary” covers.

The gap is not one year’s. For India, the later answer’s figure is higher in all four years both answers cover: 16.4% against 13.8% in 2022-23, 14.1% against 10.9% in 2023-24, 11.5% against 8.2% in 2024-25 and 9.5% against 7.0% in 2025-26. For 2025-26 it is higher in 33 of the 36 states and union territories, lower only in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh and Delhi. The widest gaps are in Telangana (5.8% against 1.7%) and West Bengal (5.5% against 1.5%).

A rate over a different range of classes would differ, so the two figures need not contradict each other. But a reader given either answer alone cannot tell which classes the secondary rate refers to, and the answers do not explain the difference.

What the answers do not give

The 10 August 2026 question asked for the higher secondary level; the answer has no higher secondary column. The 3 August 2026 question asked for the number of students, for social categories and for the districts with higher dropout; the answer gives rates only, by gender, with no social category and no district.

Both questions asked for the reasons students drop out. Both answers give, from the Periodic Labour Force Survey for 2025, the major reasons “for the students who never attended the schools”: “to supplement household income, to attend domestic chores, etc.” That describes students who never attended school, not students who left it.

Rows that need explaining

West Bengal. In the 3 August 2026 answer its Class IX to XII dropout rate is 20.3% for 2024-25, the highest of any state or UT that year, and 1.5% for 2025-26, the lowest. The 10 August 2026 answer shows the same fall, from 20.0% to 5.5%. The answers do not say why.

Jharkhand. For 2024-25 its Class IX to XII dropout rate is 0.0% for boys, girls and in total, the only such secondary row in the four years. The 10 August 2026 answer gives Jharkhand a secondary rate of 3.5% for the same year, and the 3 August answer’s own transition table shows 81.3% of its students moving from the middle to the secondary stage.

Bihar. Its middle to secondary transition rate is 31.5% for 2023-24, against 72.9% the year before and 66.7% the year after, the lowest middle to secondary rate in any row of any year.

2022-23. At the lower stages, both answers show their highest rates in 2022-23. India’s primary dropout rate is 7.8% in 2022-23 against 1.5% the year before and 1.9% the year after; Uttar Pradesh’s is 18.8%. The other answer gives India 8.7% for Class III to V that year and 3.7% the next. Neither says why.

Adds up

Rates do not sum, so the test here is the identity within each row: a total rate must lie between the boys’ and the girls’. In all 888 boys, girls and total sets in the 3 August 2026 answer, India’s among them, it does. Every figure we use matches between each answer’s Word file and its PDF.

Got it right

On the 3 August 2026 answer’s figures, India’s Class IX to XII dropout rate fell in every year, from 13.8% in 2022-23 to 7.0% in 2025-26, and the share moving from the middle to the secondary stage rose from 83.3% in 2023-24 to 88.3%. In 2025-26 girls dropped out at a lower rate than boys at Class IX to XII for India (5.7% against 8.3%) and in 34 of 36 states and UTs, all but Bihar and Lakshadweep.

Kerala is the only state or UT whose Class IX to XII rate is below 5% in all four years: 4.7% in 2022-23, 2.2% in 2023-24, 3.5% in 2024-25 and 2.9% in 2025-26. The 3 August 2026 answer also defines its stages by class, splits every rate by gender and adds the transition rate, so a reader can see where students are lost. The ministry’s count of government schools, from the same UDISE+ system, is in our audit of the fall in government schools.

Every state and union territory

How we did this

• Sources: the Ministry of Education’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 2465, answered on 3 August 2026, Annexure-I (dropout and transition rates by stage and gender, 2022-23 to 2025-26), and its answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 3603, answered on 10 August 2026, Annexure (primary and secondary dropout rates, 2021-22 to 2025-26).
• Two Numbers: we set each answer’s India and state figures for the same year side by side. The gap in points is the 10 August figure less the 3 August figure, computed from the printed rates.
• Adds up: rates do not sum, so we checked that every total lies between the boys’ and girls’ rates. All 888 sets pass.
• Later answers: we searched the Lok Sabha’s index of answers to the end of the monsoon session on 12 August 2026. No later answer on school dropout rates was found.
• Download the data: school-dropout-transition-rates-2021-22-to-2025-26.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

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