Panaji: Educationists have pointed to errors in central govt data which shows that Goa has the lowest gross enrolment ratio (GER) for Scheduled Tribe children in the country, with only 66.2% of the eligible students from the category enrolled in schools from Class I to VIII. This was significantly lower than the national average of 98.2%.The Union education ministry’s unified district information system for education (UDISE+) report for 2025-26 released recently states that in Class IX and X too, the GER for Goa ST students is 70.8%, which is below the national average of 85.4%, though not the lowest in India.Only in Class XI and XII, the data states that the GER for ST students in Goa is 62.9%, which is higher than the national average of 55.9%.Former chairperson of the Goa board of secondary and higher secondary education, Jose Remedios Rebello, said that low enrolment for ST students is not an issue seen in Goa.“GER basically refers to the students who are enrolled as against the students who are eligible to study in that particular age group. It is important to see what is the base data being used for to get the number of eligible students. In areas like Nuvem or Canacona, where the number of ST students is high, there is 100% enrolment. In Canacona, the number of secondary and higher secondary schools is only going up in ST-dominated areas. The UDISE+ data on ST student GER seems to be the usual problem with data keeping or misinterpretation,” he said.He said that earlier, a similar issue was seen in Goa with a high dropout rate being reported; here, the failure rate was confused with dropouts.An education official formerly working with ST students said that the GER data for ST students is illogical as Goa’s overall GER is 100%. “UDISE+ data itself shows that Goa’s GER is 100%, so how can it be 60% for ST students. If you take any particular area in Goa, you will not find any children who are out of school, except some floating population of migrant children,” he said.He said that the format for UDISE+ data is also altered each year, leading to confusion among those feeding the data.ST rights activist from Quepem, John Fernandes, however, said that better education infrastructure facilities are needed in remote ST population-dominated areas in Goa.“Each year, state govt’s funding for education is only decreasing. In remote areas of Goa, only govt schools are available and basic facilities and teachers are severely lacking in these schools. This can affect the GER in these areas unless the facilities are improved,” said Fernandes.
