Education Headline indicator Lower is better

Dropout rate (Secondary)

Share of Grades 9-10 students who left school during the year without completing the level. Lower is better. Secondary is where Indian dropouts spike.

Tamil Nadu's secondary dropout is 8.5% % (2024-25), per Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education.

Tamil Nadu, latest

8.5%

2024-25

Last verified 2026-05-15

Change

-17.5%

2022-23 → 2024-25

Rank vs compared states

#2 of 5

TN vs MH, KA, GJ, UP · lower is better

Tamil Nadu's Secondary dropout is 8.5% (2024-25), down +17.5% since 2022-23. It ranks #2 of 5 compared states (lower is better).

Source Official Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education Coverage 2022-23 – 2024-25 Sources & methodology ↓

About this indicator

This measures the share of students in Grades 9 and 10 who leave school during the year without completing the stage, capturing where the system loses adolescents rather than whether they enrolled in the first place. Secondary years are a common exit point driven by cost, distance, work, early marriage, or learning difficulties, so the rate is a sensitive gauge of retention. Definitions and the treatment of students who transfer or return can vary, so compare cautiously across states and years.

Secondary dropout · 2022-23 – 2024-25

Tamil Nadu's Secondary dropout fell from 10.3% (2022-23) to 8.5% (2024-25).

Source: Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education

Compare with Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh

1 KA Karnataka 18.3% 2024-25
2 GJ Gujarat 16.9% 2024-25
3 MH Maharashtra 11.5% 2024-25
4 TN Tamil Nadu 8.5% 2024-25
5 UP Uttar Pradesh 7.0% 2024-25

Tamil Nadu highlighted. Each row shows that state's value and the year it is from. Compare like years with care.

Where this data comes from

The provenance of every value above and how to cite it.

Source provenance

All observations come from a single source.

FY23 → FY25

Primary ↗

Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education

UDISE+ Booklets (Existing Structure), Ministry of Education

15 observations across 5 states · Tier 2

Click any segment to open the source publication and verify the values yourself.

Methodology & notes

Secondary (Grades 9-10) dropout rate, Total, from UDISE+ Booklet Table 6.13 (Existing Structure), parsed from the official PDF. Series starts 2022-23 (UDISE+ student-wise database era).