<span style="color: #222222;">The Centre today said during the period of 2019-20 the school dropout rate in secondary class of 9 to 10 was 16.1 percent across the country. In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Education Annpurna Devi informed that the dropout for Upper Primary in 6 to 8 class was 2.6 percent while 1.5 percent in Primary Class of 1 to 5.<br />'' <br />''<br />''The minister said, in order to mitigate the impact of learning gap and loss due to Covid-19 pandemic the Government has taken several steps including initiation of digital, online and on air education to enable multi-mode access to education.</span>