Barmer, Feb. 6 -- One in four students have dropped out of school in Rajasthan's desert and border districts over the past five years, with dropout rates surging sharply at the secondary level, government data presented in Parliament shows. In a written reply to a starred question raised by Barmer MP Ummedaram Beniwal in the Lok Sabha on Monday, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan informed that data analysed under the Praveshotsav programme showed a cumulative dropout rate of 26.44% over the past five years in Barmer and Jaisalmer. According to the reply, level-wise data revealed a steep rise in dropouts at each successive stage of schooling. It is informed that in Barmer, the cumulative dropout rate over five years stood at 2.76% at the primary level, 6.42% at the upper primary level, and 12.16% at the secondary level, taking the district's total to 21.34%. While, Jaisalmer recorded even higher dropout levels, with 6.14% at the primary stage, 9.46% at upper primary, and 15.34% at the secondary level, pushing the district's overall dropout rate to 30.94% during the period. Year-wise data pointed to sustained stress at the secondary stage in both districts. In Barmer, secondary-level dropout rates increased from 9.8% in 2020-21 to a peak of 16.7% in 2022-23, before declining to 9.7% in 2024-25. Jaisalmer saw sharper fluctuations, with secondary dropouts touching 21.5% in 2022-23 and remaining high at 13.3% in 2024-25. Upper primary dropout rates also stayed consistently high across the five-year period. The minister said the Centre has been implementing the Samagra Shiksha scheme since 2018-19 in line with the National Education Policy 2020 to address access, equity and quality issues. "As classes go higher, children are pushed out in larger numbers. This is not poverty alone - it is the collapse of infrastructure, teachers and accountability," Beniwal said. "He alleged that nearly 70% of teaching posts are vacant in the region....