The strength of students in government schools in Kerala has declined this academic year, a trend linked to the demographic transition of the state seen as a role model for population control.

Statistics of the first head-count of the academic year held last week showed that the number of students in state-run and government aided schools fell by 1.21 lakh this year.

While these categories of schools had a total of 43.51 lakh students last year, the latest count put it at 42.3 lakh, sources in the General Education Department said.

The head count is held on the sixth working day of the academic year annually. The exercise would be repeated after a month to confirm the results. The aided schools showed greater fall of nearly 95,000 in number of children than the those run directly by the government.

Confirming the perception that change in demographic profile as the main factor for the decline of children in schools, the enrolment in the first standard dipped to 3.22 lakh from 3.37 lakh last year.

According to official figures, based on 2001 census, the proportion of children (0-14 age) to the total population of Kerala stood at 26.1 per cent, which was lower compared to most other states. According to demographers, this trend might have sharpened in the last one decade. In contrast, Kerala is one of the fast ageing Indian state where the number of those above 60 years of age has been steadily increasing.

Mushrooming of private English medium educational schools and increasing preference of parents to send their children to such institutions are also seen to have contributed to decline of student strength in state sector schools.

Continuing fall of children in state sector schools are feared to render a number of teaching jobs in the long run, though for time being any large-scale retrenchment is out of question in highly unionised school education sector in the state.

As per the Economic Review of state Planning Board, Kerala has a total of 12,642 schools, of which 4501 are directly run by the government and 7278 are aided, which are run by managements but the pay of staff is provided by the government.