Across Andhra Pradesh, 4,91,137 students have been identified as school dropouts. School education officials claim they have already enrolled 4,90,908 of them through a special drive, leaving only 229 cases pending. But even as the new school year has begun, thousands of these children remain out of classrooms, and the numbers coming from district education offices tell a different story than the one being claimed at the state level.
Across the ten districts reporting the highest number of out-of-school children, Kurnool alone reports 40,140 dropouts, the highest of 10 districts, and the combined total comes to 2,40,957 children, an average of roughly 24,096 children per district.
Source: Deccan Chronicle
That figure reflects only the highest-burden districts and does not represent a statewide average. Still, it is hard to reconcile that with a claim that the dropout problem has effectively been resolved, with only 229 remaining cases. If district-level data alone shows nearly two and a half lakh children still out of school in just ten districts, the official claim of re-enrolling 490,908 students statewide does not hold up against the numbers being reported on the ground.
This is not the first time an official claim about Andhra Pradesh’s school system has been debunked against independent data. The state government has separately claimed that 1.10 lakh students shifted from private schools into government schools in recent years. UDISE Plus, the Union Education Ministry’s own data portal does not support that claim either.
Between 2023-24 and 2025-26, the number of government schools in the state fell from 45,000 to 44,222, and government-aided schools fell from 991 to 797. Enrollment in government schools did not rise during this period. It fell, from 40,50,116 students to 34,93,450, a decline of 5,56,666 students. If 1.10 lakh students had genuinely moved from private into government schools, total government enrollment should have grown rather than dropped by more than five and a half lakh.
Taken together, the dropout figures and the enrollment figures point to the same underlying issue. Claims made at the government level about the education enrollment are not matching what district offices and independent data portals are showing. Teachers on the ground have raised similar concerns, saying official dropout figures do not reflect what they are seeing in their own schools, including cases where children who want to enroll are being turned away over unresolved paperwork or unpaid private school fees.
