BANGALORE: All 1.06 lakh out-of-school children in the seven to 14 age group identified in 2005 have been readmitted to schools, Primary Education Minister Basavaraj S. Horatti said here on Tuesday.

Addressing presspersons that the number of out-of-school children according to the "Children Census for 2006" was 75,825.

He told presspersons that the new Census had several features, prominent among which was the convergence of the Education, Labour, Mines and Geology, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, and Urban Development departments in the exercise.

Of the 75,825 out-of-school children, 51.54 per cent were girls; 32.29 per cent of children are from the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 14.59 per cent from the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Gulbarga had the highest percentage (57) of out-of-school children in the seven-to-14 age group, he added.

Mr. Horatti said that was because there was a fairly high percentage of floating population. In Lambani "thandas", families migrated to other parts of Karnataka, Goa or Maharashtra for employment. Children were not being admitted to schools in those places, and they were being made to work, he added.

Meeting

The Minister said he would soon meet department officials and chalk out plans to involve self-help groups and non-governmental organisations in supplying midday meals under the "Bisiyoota" programme to increase enrolment in schools.

Over 60 per cent of children who were out of school were in Yadgir, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bellary, Bijapur, Koppal, Bidar, Bagalkot, Bangalore Rural and Uttara Kannada.

Mr. Horatti said that as a step against employment of children, an inter-State Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) task force had been constituted, and Karnataka would lead the activities of the task force. The SSA in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Kerala were under the purview of the task force, he added.

The Census had identified nearly 1.3 lakh children with special needs: 25,318 children were visually impaired, 23,299 were hearing impaired, 30,195 were orthopaedically handicapped and 26,798 were mentally retarded. As many as 18,446 children had learning disabilities and 5,775 children had other disabilities.

Mr. Horatti said that last year, statistics collected in a house-to-house survey were compared with data from surveys conducted by independent agencies, such as the Social and Rural Research Institute, and found accurate. Under the SSA, over 10.5 lakh children had been brought to the mainstream. He said that in 2005-06, 616 school buildings were built. For the current year, 743 building had been sanctioned. Last year, 717 primary schools were established in habitations which had no schools.

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