The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Marginal drop in out-of-school children

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Friday, Mar 21, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Marginal drop in out-of-school children

Bageshree S.

Gulbarga accounts for more than 50 p.c. of the total number of such children

Bangalore: As many as 72,365 children continue to remain out of school in Karnataka, according to the provisional figures of the Karnataka Child Census for 2008, as against last year’s figure of 80,863. This represents a decline, but not a substantial one.

The three-day census to map the educational status of children in the 6-14 age group was undertaken by the Education Department and was conducted between January 21 and 23 this year.

About 80 lakh children from 1.10 crore households across Karnataka came within its purview.

Although its methodology was criticised by child rights NGOs, it nevertheless offers a trend in children’s access to education.

In continuation of last year’s trend, Gulbarga division remains at the bottom and accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total number of out-of school children. The division — comprising Bellary, Bidar, Gulbarga, Koppal, Raichur, and Yadgir — accounts for 40,272 out-of-school children.

The numbers stood at 44,663 last year.

Interestingly, girls seem to fare marginally better than boys with 35,854 of them out of school as against 36,511 boys.

While enrolment of girls is higher than that of boys, their retention rate is poorer (see box), a clear pointer to a sociological factors at play.

Worrying trend

A worrying factor is the dip in education access in Belgaum division, which from the third place last year has fallen to second this time with 14,530 out-of-school children. The same division last year recorded 12,715 children out of school. Bangalore and Mysore have 11,839 and 5,724 children out of school, respectively, this year.

K.P. Hanumantharayappa, Joint Director, Programmes of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, said: “We are now tackling the last segment of out-of-school children, who are the toughest to bring back to school.”

Over the last few years, the biggest challenge for school enrolment programmes of the State has been to get children from the migratory population into schools — comprising mostly of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minority communities — 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.

The annual census is a significant exercise because of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’s objective of ensuring that all children get eight years of elementary schooling by 2010.

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