The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : State-wide child census from January 21

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Friday, Jan 18, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

State-wide child census from January 21

Bageshree S.

This year’s census to update on filled out forms from last year

Final compilation likely to be over by the end of April
The census maps the educational status of children

Bangalore: The entire machinery of the Education Department is gearing up for the annual State-wide child census for 2008, starting on January 21.

The three-day exercise, that maps the educational status of children aged up to 14 years, will collect data from 1.10 crore households across Karnataka.

All primary schools that come under the purview of the Karnataka Education Department, which includes government, aided and unaided State syllabus schools, will remain closed on these three days.

If need be, the schools will have to take special classes to make up for lost hours.

The special feature of this year’s census is that it will build on the available data by updating the filled out forms from last year, rather than start from the scratch. Each enumerator will add to the existing information on every child and rectify it if there are any errors.

Additional data

Data will be entered on blank forms only in district centres and Bangalore city. “We did not have a column on residential address in previous year’s census and it will be hard to track down families in big cities in their absence,” said K.P. Hanumantharayappa, Joint Director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. This year’s census will have additional columns on address and educational and professional background of parents.

Visiting households

Enumerators have been appointed at the rate of one teacher per 100 households, with one supervisor for every 10 enumerators. Besides teachers, officials of various departments, panchayat members, NGO representatives and Anganwadi workers will visit households in teams over three days.

Circulars and instruction manuals have already been sent to all district and taluk centres and training programmes are afoot. Final compilation of data on the census is expected to be over by the end of April, said Mr. Hanumantharayappa.

Census 2007

Statistics emerging from Child Census 2007 show that 93,276 children are out of school in Karnataka in the age group of 7 to 14 years.

Of them 44,663 (55.23 per cent) were from Gulbarga zone alone. Children from Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minority communities accounted for the largest number of out-of-school children in the last census.

This pattern is unlikely to change, though the department is hoping for a decline in total numbers. Mr. Hanumantharayappa said that the biggest challenge is to get children from the migratory population into schools, with retention rather than enrolment posing the largest problem.

Residential programmes such as the Asha Kirana and seasonal bridge courses are intended specially to attract children from poor migrant families to schools, but many parents are reluctant to send their children away from families, he added.

Significance

The annual census gains significance in the light of SSA’s objective of ensuring that all children complete eight years of elementary schooling by 2010, a target not easy to meet.

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