The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Children map poor school attendance in 19 villages

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 10, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Children map poor school attendance in 19 villages

By Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI, MAY 9. A week before March 19, yet another head count was done to find out how many children in the State were out of school. The only difference was that the children themselves conducted this — children who went to school identified those who did not.

In a random sample exercise in 19 villages in Coimbatore, Erode, Dindigul, the Nilgiris and Perambalur, children plotted a map to indicate those who were out of school.

In the 19 villages with a population of 14,626, there were 303 children out of school. "This is not a statistically significant exercise. However, it is relevant, as it is the closest we can get to the truth, since the children themselves drew up the maps," according to A. Aloysius, director, SAVE — an NGO (non-governmental organisation) based at Tirupur. SAVE is also the Tamil Nadu coordinator for 35 NGOs which are partners of the Global Campaign for Education.

Five NGOs in different districts anchored the project, roping in over 5,000 children in regular schools and non-formal education transit schools for the exercise, which was also taken up at the national level. "NGO volunteers went to the villages and in collaboration with the villagers and local bodies, drew up a map of the area. Armed with the statistics the children provided, the location of the out-of-school children was then plotted on the map," Mr. Aloysius said. While a couple of municipal slum areas in Tirupur were chosen, the mapping studied largely rural areas — 11 villages in Coimbatore, three in Erode and one each in Dindigul, the Nilgiris and Perambalur. In addition to identifying children who were meant to be in schools, but were not, the study also analysed the reasons that were keeping them out.

About 60 per cent of them were out of school because they were employed as labourers. A further 10 per cent were out because of physical and mental disabilities and the rest remained at home, detained by the family or inaccessible schools. In a particular area in Tirupur, the younger children complained that they could not go to school because they had to cross a river to do so. Mr. Aloysius said: "Even when there was no water in the river, tanneries are letting out effluents and children are scared to wade through."

N. Palanichamy, Director, HOPE, who worked on the study in Dindigul said there were children in some villages who were eight years old but had never been to school. He pointed out that disability was one factor that kept children at home.

Although the Government of India has initiated the Education for All scheme (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan) there are still a large number of children out of school.

"The mapping exercise proves this. As such, it has to be viewed seriously, because if we extrapolate this data onto the national level, the number of children out of school will go into millions," Mr. Aloysius said.

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