Gujarat's Education Department has used an Artificial Intelligence-based Early Warning System (EWS) to prevent more than 1.67 lakh at-risk students from leaving school and has brought over 90,000 former dropouts back into classrooms, according to state government data released on Thursday, 25 June 2025. The disclosures came as Gujarat launched the 24th edition of its annual Shala Praveshotsav (School Enrolment Drive).

How the AI Early Warning System Works

Housed at the Vidya Samiksha Kendra in Gandhinagar, the AI-based EWS analyses a wide range of student-level and school-level variables — including attendance patterns, academic performance, assessment outcomes, age, gender, disability status, household economic conditions, migration patterns, parental attitudes, and family size — to flag students in Classes 1 to 8 who may be at risk of dropping out before they actually do.

By processing these indicators, the system generates early alerts that allow education officials to intervene proactively. According to state government data, the EWS prevented 1,67,446 at-risk students from discontinuing their education during the previous academic year. This year, the system has already identified 1,18,234 students as potential dropout risks, enabling targeted preventive action.

Child Tracking System Brings 90,000 Back to School

Alongside the AI initiative, the state has scaled up its Child Tracking System (CTS) — an online platform developed jointly by the Education Department and Samagra Shiksha. The CTS currently maintains records for more than one crore students enrolled across 54,000-plus schools in Gujarat, tracking children from Balvatika through primary education.

The platform monitors enrolment, attendance, migration, and academic progress, while also ensuring eligible students receive the benefits of government education schemes. According to state data, 90,212 children who had previously dropped out were re-enrolled in school this year through the CTS.

Officials said the CTS is now being integrated with the AI-based EWS, allowing attendance, learning progress, and other indicators to be analysed together for earlier identification of dropout risks.

Shala Praveshotsav: A Two-Decade Campaign

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel inaugurated the 24th Shala Praveshotsav from B.N. High School in Vadnagar on Monday. The programme was originally launched by then Gujarat Chief Minister and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the aim of ensuring every child eligible for primary education is enrolled in school and that awareness about education reaches all corners of the state.

The state government has set a target of reducing school dropout rates to near zero across primary, secondary, and higher education levels — a goal that the combined deployment of the EWS and CTS is now directly supporting.

What Comes Next

The integration of the two platforms signals a shift toward a unified, data-driven approach to student retention in Gujarat. With 1,18,234 students currently flagged as at-risk for the ongoing academic year, the effectiveness of this year's interventions will be a key measure of whether the state can sustain — and deepen — the dropout decline it has recorded over the past two decades.