by Dr. Ratan Bhattacharjee
A school dropout is often recorded as a statistic: a name disappears from an attendance register, a child does not return after a vacation, or a student fails to transition from one stage of schooling to the next. But behind every such number lies a story. In Kashmir, those stories increasingly point towards a deeper crisis, one that cannot be explained merely by lack of interest in studies or examination failure. The latest educational data for Jammu and Kashmir presents a disturbing paradox. The Union Territory has made considerable progress in bringing young children into school, yet a substantial proportion of them disappear from the education system as they approach adolescence. The crisis becomes particularly sharp at the secondary level, precisely when education should be preparing young people for higher studies, employment and responsible citizenship.
According to UDISE+ data for 2024–25, Jammu and Kashmir recorded a secondary-level dropout rate of 12.9 per cent, compared with the national figure of 11.5 per cent. The rate was 13.6 per cent for boys and 12.2 per cent for girls. At the primary level, however, the dropout rate was only 1.5 per cent, while at the upper-primary level it was 3.2 per cent. The contrast is revealing. Children are entering the school system, but too many are not making it through the educational journey. The situation becomes even more serious when one examines retention rather than dropout alone. In 2025–26, only 39.1 per cent of children in Jammu and Kashmir who entered Class I were retained through the higher-secondary stage, compared with 51.9 per cent nationally.
The retention figure has fluctuated sharply, falling to 33.5 per cent in 2023–24 before recovering to 38.2 per cent in 2024–25 and 39.1 per cent in 2025–26. In other words, the crisis is not simply about children dropping out at one particular point. It is about the weakening of the entire chain of educational continuity.The most important question is: Why does the problem intensify as children grow older?The answer is complex. Poverty, household responsibilities, inadequate transportation, distance from school, weak academic performance, lack of motivation, family expectations, gender norms, early marriage, child labour and disruptions caused by conflict can interact with one another.
A recent study focusing on tribal communities in Jammu and Kashmir found that dropout at the upper-primary stage was particularly significant among tribal students. It identified poverty, hereditary occupations, sibling care, early engagement, school distance, lack of mobile schools, irrelevant pedagogy and low academic achievement among the important factors. This is important because Kashmir’s educational problem cannot be treated as a single, uniform phenomenon. The experience of a child in an urban neighbourhood of Srinagar is not necessarily the same as that of a child in a remote mountainous village, a tribal settlement or a poor rural household.For some children, the school is physically too far away. For others, reaching it may be possible but remaining there is economically difficult. Some children become responsible for younger siblings. Some boys enter work. Some girls are expected to shoulder domestic responsibilities. For still others, repeated academic failure gradually produces a feeling that school is not meant for them.
The national evidence reinforces this pattern. Research based on adolescent data has found that family-related reasons, school-related problems, paid work, lack of interest in education and examination failure all contribute to dropout, with significant gender differences in the causes. The relatively lower dropout rate among girls than boys at the secondary level should not lead to complacency. The figure for girls in Jammu and Kashmir, 12.2 per cent in 2024–25, is still considerably higher than the national figure of 9.6 per cent. More importantly, a girl may leave school for reasons that are less visible than formal employment. Domestic
work, care of younger siblings, family illness, restrictions on mobility, concerns about safety and pressure towards marriage can quietly interrupt her education.
Research on rural Kashmir has documented the role of gender discrimination, poverty, patriarchal expectations, household workload, concerns about daughters’ safety and family circumstances in female school dropout.
The tragedy is that a girl may be academically capable and eager to continue but still find herself forced to choose between the classroom and the household.Education is therefore not merely a question of building more classrooms. It requires changing the social environment surrounding the classroom.A school may have a building, textbooks and teachers, but if a girl cannot travel safely to school, if she is required to care for younger children at home, or if her family believes that further education has little practical value, formal access does not automatically become meaningful educational opportunity.
There is another factor that cannot be ignored: the prolonged disruption caused by conflict and instability. Kashmir’s educational calendar has repeatedly been affected by closures, disturbances and interruptions. Research involving teachers in Jammu and Kashmir has found that irregular school calendars, absenteeism and prolonged disruptions can weaken students’ engagement with learning. Teachers reported that students returning after extended closures often struggled to reconnect with their studies. The consequences of interrupted schooling are cumulative. A child who misses several weeks of classes may initially be able to catch up. But repeated interruptions can create learning gaps. A student who does not understand mathematics in Class VIII may struggle considerably more in Class IX. A child who loses confidence in reading may become reluctant to participate in class. Repeated failure produces embarrassment; embarrassment produces absenteeism; absenteeism produces further failure—and eventually dropout. Thus, dropout is often the last stage of a long process of disengagement.
The child does not necessarily decide one morning to abandon school. The departure may begin months or years earlier. Another disturbing dimension is the shrinking government-school network. According to data presented to Parliament, the number of government schools in Jammu and Kashmir fell from 23,173 in 2021–22 to 18,787 in 2025–26, a reduction of 4,386 schools, or about 18.9 per cent. School rationalisation and mergers may sometimes be administratively necessary when institutions have very few students. Maintaining completely empty or severely under-enrolled schools is obviously inefficient. But rationalisation must be approached with caution in a mountainous and geographically dispersed region. A school that appears redundant on a spreadsheet may be indispensable to a small village.
Distance matters greatly for younger children and adolescent girls. If a school merger increases the journey substantially, some families may decide that continuing education is no longer worth the cost or difficulty. The latest data also indicate that 188 schools had zero enrolment and 1,544 were functioning with a single teacher in 2025–26. These figures expose a structural contradiction. On one side are schools with very few or no students; on the other are children who are leaving the education system. The policy challenge is to connect the two problems intelligently rather than treating them separately.
There has been substantial improvement in infrastructure over the years. Government data indicate progress in facilities such as electricity, toilets and libraries. Yet infrastructure alone cannot solve dropout. A school can have a new building and still lose students if teaching is uninspiring, if subject teachers are unavailable, if students are afraid of mathematics, if there is no counselling support or if examinations become an experience of repeated humiliation. The educational system must therefore shift its emphasis from enrolment to engagement. The real question should not be merely: How many children are enrolled?It should be: How many attend regularly? How many understand what they are taught? How many feel safe? How many believe education can improve their lives? How many are likely to complete Class XII? These are harder questions, but they are the questions that matter.
Academic weakness is frequently underestimated as a cause of dropout. A student who repeatedly performs poorly may gradually develop what psychologists call an avoidance response. Instead of confronting the difficulty, the student begins avoiding school. Parents may interpret this as laziness. Teachers may interpret it as lack of interest. Eventually the child becomes classified as a dropout. This is why early identification is essential. Every school should maintain a student-risk register identifying children with persistent absenteeism, declining performance, repeated failure or sudden behavioural changes. Such students should receive remedial instruction, mentoring and counselling before they disappear from the system. The transition from Class VIII to IX deserves particular attention. So does the transition from Class X to XI. The latter is especially important because the latest figures show that only 74.7 per cent of boys and 76.3 per cent of girls in Jammu and Kashmir transitioned from Class X to Class XI in 2025–26.
That means roughly one in four students did not make that transition. Not every child has the same academic aspirations. Some students are more interested in technology, agriculture, horticulture, tourism, crafts, mechanics, healthcare assistance, computers or entrepreneurship than in conventional academic subjects. A rigid curriculum can make such students feel that school has nothing to offer them. Vocational education should therefore not be presented as an inferior alternative for academically weak students. It should be integrated into mainstream education as a respectable pathway to skills and employment. Jammu and Kashmir has already introduced vocational education in a significant number of schools. The challenge now is to ensure that such programmes are meaningful, locally relevant and linked to real opportunities. A student who can see a connection between classroom learning and a future livelihood has a stronger reason to remain in school.
The solution to the dropout crisis must be multi-layered. First, schools need early-warning systems. Attendance, academic performance and behavioural indicators should be monitored continuously. Second, transport support must be strengthened, especially for children in remote areas and adolescent girls. Third, scholarships and financial assistance should reach vulnerable families without bureaucratic delay. Poverty should never force a child out of school. Fourth, girls need safe and supportive educational environments, including functional toilets, adequate female teachers, counselling and secure transportation where necessary. Fifth, tribal and remote communities require context-specific educational strategies. Mobile schooling, residential facilities, hostels and flexible learning arrangements can be important where conventional schools are geographically difficult to access. Sixth, teachers need support and training, not simply accountability. A teacher handling a multi-grade classroom or a school affected by years of disruption needs specialised pedagogical and counselling skills.
Seventh, remedial education must become an integral part of schooling. A child should not be allowed to fall permanently behind because of one year of learning loss.Finally, the government must examine school mergers carefully. Efficiency cannot be measured only by the number of schools closed. It must also consider travel distance, attendance, retention and the educational consequences for vulnerable children. The language of statistics can sometimes make the crisis appear impersonal. Twelve per cent is a number. But imagine twelve children sitting in a classroom of one hundred. Imagine their empty chairs. Imagine that behind each empty chair there is a family, an interrupted dream and a future that may have become narrower.
The latest figures contain one encouraging message: dropout has declined at some stages and retention has improved in several indicators. The national education system as a whole has also recorded progress. The Union government says the 2025–26 national secondary dropout rate fell to 7 per cent. But Jammu and Kashmir cannot be satisfied with improvement that leaves it significantly behind the national retention benchmark. The most disturbing statistic may therefore not be the dropout rate itself. It is the fact that only around four out of ten children who enter Class I are retained through higher secondary education in Jammu and Kashmir.
That is the deeper crisis. Kashmir needs an education system in which a child does not merely enter school but belongs there; does not merely attend but learns; does not merely pass examinations but develops confidence; and does not disappear silently at adolescence. The fight against dropout is ultimately a fight against inequality. It is a fight against poverty that sends children to work, against social expectations that restrict girls, against geographical isolation that makes schools inaccessible, against disrupted schooling that produces learning loss, and against institutional indifference that allows an absent child to remain absent.
The solution will not come from one scheme, one circular or one campaign. It will require schools, teachers, parents, local communities, civil society and government agencies to work together. Most importantly, it will require listening to children themselves. Every dropout is a message. Sometimes it says, I cannot afford school. Sometimes, I have to work. Sometimes, I have to look after my family. Sometimes, I cannot understand what is being taught. Sometimes, I do not feel safe. And sometimes it simply says, Nobody noticed that I stopped coming. That last possibility should be unacceptable.
Kashmir’s future cannot be built only through roads, industries, tourism and infrastructure. Its most important infrastructure is the mind of its young generation. If thousands of children leave school before completing their education, the cost will eventually be paid not only by individual families but by the entire society.The objective, therefore, should be clear: no child should be allowed to disappear from the classroom unnoticed.For Kashmir, retaining a child in school is more than an educational achievement. It is an investment in social stability, economic opportunity, gender equality and human dignity.The empty chair in a classroom is not merely an absence.It is a warning about the future.
Author is International Tagore Awardee. He can be mailed at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com
