Bhubaneswar, Sep 25: Odisha’s secondary school dropout rate declined to 14.1% in 2025-26 from 15% in 2024-25, indicating an improvement in student retention, School and Mass Education Minister Nityananda Gond informed the State Assembly on Friday.

According to UDISE+ data cited by the minister, the dropout rate had increased from 12.80% in 2023-24 to 15% in 2024-25 before declining in the latest academic year.

Gond, replying to a written question by Bhawanipatna MLA Sagar Charan Das, said the state government did not have data on students who passed Class X in 2024-25 but did not enrol in Class XI. It also lacked information on how many of these students subsequently joined ITIs, polytechnics, diploma or nursing courses, or enrolled through NIOS, SIOS and other programmes.

The minister said district-wise details of Out-of-School Children (OoSC) identified and mainstreamed under the Odisha Shiksha Sarvekshan (OSS)/Child Tracking Survey had been provided in an annexure.

Across 30 districts, 2,16,131 OoSC were identified after excluding duplicate, test and invalid entries. Of them, 79,996 had been mainstreamed, while 1,36,135 remained outside mainstream education.

The OSS data identified earning compulsion, lack of awareness and parental unwillingness among key reasons for dropout. Earning compulsion accounted for 26,932 cases, lack of awareness for 23,449 and parental unwillingness for 59,656 cases.

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