2.07 lakh Telangana students remain untraced in school records
HYDERABAD: The whereabouts of 2.07 lakh students who attended government and private schools in Telangana during the 2025-26 academic year remain unaccounted for, highlighting gaps in the state’s student-tracking system. The school education department is working to reconcile the records before submitting the state’s student data to the Union education ministry through the Unified District […]Over 61% of untraced students fall within CURE Under the existing system, when a student leaves a school, with or without a transfer certificate, the headmaster removes the student's name from the school register and moves the entry to the drop box on the UDISE portal. If the student enrols in another school, the new school's management is expected to retrieve the entry from the drop box. This reduces the number of unaccounted-for students. However, four months into the 2026-27 academic year, 2.07 lakh student entries remain in the drop box. School education department officials have questioned why so many entries remain unresolved, while headmasters say the schools or junior colleges where the students enrolled are not retrieving the records. The department is now focusing on clearing the entries and plans to submit the state's total student enrolment figures to the Centre within a month. Of the students listed in the drop box, 73,054 had previously studied in government schools and 1,34,680 in private schools. As many as 1,27,306 students, or 61.28% of the total, belong to the CURE region, which covers Hyderabad, Medchal, Rangareddy and Sangareddy districts. Telangana had approximately 58 lakh students in Classes 1 to 10 during the previous academic year. Several factors explain the missing student records One major reason is that some students who pass Class 10 enrol in polytechnic institutes, Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and other courses. These institutions are not covered by UDISE, leaving an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 student records in the drop box. Another 10,000 students are estimated to have failed Class 10, with their subsequent enrolment details not reflected in UDISE. Officials estimate that around 20,000 students may have moved to other states. Several thousand others discontinue their education for various reasons, but their exact number is yet to be established. Facial recognition attendance raises questions over bogus entries There are also allegations that some schools retain the names of students who have dropped out or enrolled elsewhere because teacher posts in government schools are allocated based on student strength. Removing such names could lead to a reduction in sanctioned teaching posts. With monitoring of the facial recognition attendance system (FRS) tightened this academic year, some schools may have removed such entries from their lists and moved them to the drop box to avoid detection, according to the source report. The number of such cases is believed to run into several thousand. Overall, uncertainty is likely to persist over the status of 50,000 to 75,000 students who may have dropped out or may be bogus entries, even after the reconciliation exercise. ]]>
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17 Oct, 2026
12 hrs ago