Students passing Class XII in Gujarat much lower than national average: Cong

Ahmedabad: Quoting a Union govt progress report on sustainable development goals (SDG), the state unit of the Congress launched an attack on the ruling BJP on Monday, revealing that only 50.8% of students completed Class XII in Gujarat, compared with the national average of 61.1% in 2024-25.“The Union govt figures have exposed the actual condition of education in Gujarat even as the state govt has been making tall claims about its development model,” Congress spokesperson Parthivrajsinh Kathavadia told reporters at the GPCC headquarters on Monday. Expressing concern over dropout rates, he added that according to the report, Gujarat’s gross enrolment ratio in higher secondary education was 47.3%, compared with 58.4% nationally—a gap of more than 11 percentage points that leaves the state lagging.Demanding immediate structural intervention, Kathavadia said that Gujarat’s education sector is in dire need of comprehensive reform and urged the govt to upgrade public systems and move beyond the agenda of privatisation and commercialisation of education.