Survey Shows Sharp Fall in Out-of-School kids

Via Times of India

In another feather in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’s cap, the number of outof-school (OOS) children in the 6-14 age group has come down dramatically from 1.34 crore in 2005 to 80.4 lakh in 2009.

In percentage terms, 4.22% of the total children in this age group are not going to school as per the latest figures. The first survey of 2005 had showed that 6.94% children in this age group were OOS.

This has been revealed in the comprehensive survey by Social Research Institute of Indian Market Research Bureau of OOS children in the country. The survey, done for HRD ministry, corroborates the prestigious private survey by Pratham. In early 2009, Pratham had put OOS children at 4.3%.

The big news is Bihar’s success story and Rajasthan and UP’s poor performance. The north-south divide is also clear. Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have OOS children ranging between just 0.38% in Kerala to 1.4% in AP.

Right now the basic figures of the survey, conducted in January 2009, have come out and more facts will come once the report is finalized. But sources involved with the survey said there has been a significant decline in OOS Muslims, STs and girl students. However, the decline is not significant in case of SC children. Decline in OOS girl students is a testimony to the success of Kasturba Gandhi Ballika Vidyalaya.

Read the entire article here.

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