An approach of estimating school enrolment with Reconstructive Cohort Approach

Abstract

Policy makers and planners require enrolment data for undertaking an exercise of future planning in respect of educational development. The enrolment projection is an important planning tool to assist in long-range planning and developing action-plans related to resource allocation and system capacity. Various statistical and mathematical models or methods are discussed in past literature and articles which have some prior condition about certain parameters. Accuracy in data is another crucial aspect during the estimation. Reconstructive Cohort could be one such best approach which may be used to estimate the school enrolment figures for the next ‘n’ period. It does not require particular prior information other than repetition rate and transition rate. Enrolment is a function of population. So, the estimation of the age-appropriate population of school-entry age i.e. age 6 years (in India) and conversion of population age-groups data into school fitted age-groups data is required. In this paper, we discussed how Reconstructive Cohort Approach is applicable in certain situation and process of estimating school enrolment of India for the next decade along with other parameters.