There is a point in every education system when getting children into school stops being the hardest problem.
The harder question becomes: How do you keep them there?
Jammu and Kashmir is confronting that question now.
The secondary-school dropout rate in the Union Territory rose to 12.60 percent in 2024-25, even as dropout rates at the primary and upper-primary levels fell sharply. The contrast is revealing. It suggests that the problem is no longer simply about access to elementary education. It is about what happens when children become adolescents, when schooling becomes more demanding, travel becomes more difficult, household economics begin to matter more, and the distance between education and a believable future grows wider.
A parliamentary standing committee has noticed the warning sign. In its 260th report, presented in Parliament on August 7, the Department-related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs called for a dedicated programme to improve retention at the secondary level.
That recommendation deserves more than bureaucratic attention. It deserves urgency.
The numbers tell a story of an education system that loses students precisely when education becomes most consequential.
At the primary level, the dropout rate fell from 8.97 percent in 2023-24 to 1.50 percent in 2024-25. At the upper-primary level, it declined from 4.30 percent to 3.20 percent.
Then comes secondary school: 12.60 percent.
The progression is even more striking when measured through the Gross Enrolment Ratio. It falls from 114.2 percent at the primary level to 77 percent at upper-primary, 65.4 percent at secondary and just 53.7 percent at higher-secondary.
The precise reasons behind each departure from school will vary. But the broad lesson is difficult to miss: somewhere between childhood and adulthood, too many students are falling away.
And once they leave, returning is rarely easy.
This is why the committee’s proposed response is important. It has called for a Secondary School Retention Programme built around practical interventions: scholarships, subsidised transport, hostels, digital devices, remedial classes, career counselling and vocational exposure.
The list may sound familiar. That is precisely the point.
The dropout problem does not necessarily require a single spectacular reform. It requires a system capable of noticing why a particular student is disappearing and responding before absence becomes withdrawal.
A student who lives in a remote mountain village may not need the same intervention as one whose family cannot afford school-related expenses. A girl may be constrained by transport or safety. A child from a migratory or tribal community may face interruptions that a conventional school calendar does not accommodate. A student with a disability may confront barriers that have nothing to do with academic ability.
The committee specifically identified girls, economically weaker families, tribal and migratory communities, children with disabilities, and students living in border, mountainous, and snow-bound areas as groups requiring special attention.
That is not merely a matter of social policy. It is a matter of educational efficiency.
Every child who leaves school represents more than a statistic. It is years of investment in education that may fail to translate into a completed secondary education. It is a young person entering adulthood with fewer choices. And it is an economy losing skills it may later struggle to replace.
The answer, however, cannot be to simply tell schools to improve retention.
Schools need the capacity to do it.
The committee has rightly drawn attention to teacher availability, particularly in rural and difficult areas. A school cannot persuade students that education matters if it routinely struggles to provide teachers for core subjects.
The proposed solution – better data on vacancies and geographical requirements, incentives for teachers, accommodation and minimum-tenure provisions in difficult areas – is therefore essential.
There is another idea in the report that deserves greater attention: early identification.
Schools should identify students at risk of dropping out because of prolonged absence, poor academic performance, financial hardship or other vulnerabilities. They should then follow up with counselling and engage families.
This is where the difference between an education department and an education system becomes visible.
A department counts enrolment. A system notices absence. A department reports dropout. A system asks why the child stopped coming. A department builds classrooms. A system makes sure a child can actually reach one.
The parliamentary committee’s call for annual, district-wise and stage-wise targets, with progress reviewed at least twice a year by the Chief Secretary, is an attempt to create that accountability. Districts and education zones that repeatedly miss their targets should not merely submit another report. They should be required to explain what went wrong and what will change.
But retention should not become another exercise in chasing percentages.
The objective is not simply to keep students physically enrolled. It is to keep them engaged.
That means making secondary education feel connected to life beyond the school gate.
Here, the committee’s emphasis on vocational education is especially relevant. Jammu and Kashmir has obvious economic strengths in tourism, hospitality, horticulture, agriculture, handicrafts, healthcare, information technology and renewable energy. Yet education can sometimes present these possibilities as distant abstractions rather than realistic career paths.
Apprenticeships, internships, entrepreneurship support and “earn while learn” programmes could change that calculation.
A teenager who sees a pathway from school to a skill, from a skill to an apprenticeship and from an apprenticeship to a livelihood has a reason to remain in school.
This is also why vocational education must be measured by outcomes rather than enrolment. The administration should track completion, apprenticeships, placements and earnings. A programme that produces certificates but not opportunities is not a solution to the dropout problem. It is another layer of paperwork.
The proposed Digital University, too, should be approached with realism. Digital education can expand access, particularly in a geographically difficult region, but only if connectivity is dependable and quality is maintained. Online institutions should supplement physical education, not become an excuse to neglect it.
The central lesson from the dropout figures is ultimately simple.
Jammu and Kashmir appears to be getting better at bringing children into school. It now has to become much better at carrying them through it.
The fall in primary dropout is encouraging. The rise to 12.60 percent at the secondary level is not.
It is a warning that the educational journey is breaking at precisely the stage when young people begin making choices that can shape the rest of their lives.
The most important question, then, is not how many children entered school this year.
It is how many will still be there when the school bell rings for the last time.
About the Author
Bilquees Punjabi holds a Master’s in Computer Applications and explores the evolving relationship between technology, digital media, audiences, and journalism.
