Only 9.64% of schools in Kerala provide continuous schooling from Class I to XII, a decade-long analysis of school education in the country by NITI Aayog has revealed.

The report titled ‘School education system in India: temporal analysis and policy roadmap for quality enhancement’ shows that only 5.4% of schools provide integrated schooling covering Classes I to XII in the country. “This fragmented progression structure compels students to change institutions multiple times, which contributes to transition inefficiencies and increases the risk of dropout,” says the report.

While Kerala has done better than some other States such as West Bengal that has only 0.91% (857) of its 93,715 schools integrated; Bihar with 1.4% (1,325) out of 94,339 schools; and Uttar Pradesh with just 2.9% (7,610) of 2,62,358 schools, it is Rajasthan that accounts for the largest share of integrated schools with 27,889 institutions representing nearly 35% of the country’s total.

In Kerala, of the total 15,757 schools, 6,359 (Class I to V) are primary schools (40.3%). Nationally, 50% of India’s schools offer only primary education.

In the upper primary segment in Kerala, schools from Class I to VIII number 3,768 and those from Class VI to VIII are 644.

While 1,417 institutions are from Class I to X, 360 are from Class VI to X and 157 have only Class IX and X.

In the higher secondary category, 1,520 schools provide integrated education from Class I to XII. While 1,002 schools offer Classes VI to XII, 474 offer education only in Class IX to XII and 56 in Class XI and XII.

Enrolment in Kerala from primary to secondary remains high (primary – 93.2%, upper primary – 98.8%, secondary – 98.7%, higher secondary – 89.5%) as per UDISE+ data for 2024-25. Its transition rates from primary to upper primary are near universal at 99.3% and the highest from upper primary to secondary at 99.6%. Though Kerala has also shown an improvement in the transition from secondary to higher secondary from 73.34% in 2014-15 to 90.2%, Odisha, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Andhra Pradesh, Tripura, Bihar, Daman and Diu, and Rajasthan have shown more notable improvements.

The primary level dropout rate is 0.8% and upper primary 0.4%. At the secondary level, it is 4.8% . The report notes that Kerala has managed to contain attrition, demonstrating an improvement from 14.5% as per UDISE + data in 2014-15.

The report notes that secondary education continues to record the highest dropout rate among all stages of schooling, underscoring the vulnerability of this stage where economic pressures, early entry into the labour market, and weak institutional support converge to limit participation.