What can I learn about my state from trends in the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER)?

The Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) gives the total percentage of pupils in a particular level of school education in a corresponding official age group. For example,

\[\begin{aligned} \text{NER at Primary level} = \frac{\text{Children of age 6-10 years enrolled in class 1 to 5}}{\text{Projected population in the age group of 6-10 years}} \times 100 \end{aligned}\]

Similarly, the NER for Upper Primary level, or classes 6 to 8, would look at the age group of 11-13 years.

The NER data can be seen for the overall population or can be disaggregated by gender, social groups and geographical area. So long as you have the figures for enrolment and project population for a category, you can calculate NER for it.

What do NER trends reveal?

The value of NER indicates the degree of participation in education at a given level of education by the target age-group for that level. A high value of NER indicates that most of the age-specific population is enrolled at the level of education. Subtracting NER from 100 can give a rough estimate of the drop out children though this may not be accurate as some of these children can be in a level higher or lower than the current level.

The NER at elementary level (Class 1 to 8, age group 6-13) can, and often is, higher than the NER for primary or upper primary level. This is because some students of the 6-10 age group may be enrolled in upper primary, while those in the 11-13 age group may be enrolled in primary. But the calculation for elementary level only shows whether they are enrolled in any class between 1 to 8.

What are some common trends of NER in India?

The NER at primary and upper primary level is moderately high across states, averaging at 88.6% and 71.3% respectively (as per UDISE 2021-22). However, the NER drops greatly at the secondary and higher secondary levels. According to UDISE 2021-22, the average NER goes from 90.5% at elementary to 47.9% at secondary and only 34.2% at higher secondary level.