BANGALORE: With 1.4 million kids not attending class, India may rank fourth globally on the number of out of school children (OOSC), but Karnataka’s performance on that index has improved, if figures are an indication. The state’s OOSC rate has come down by around 45% in a span of eight months. What’s more heartening is that fewer girls are opting to drop out of schools.
A 2013-14 survey by the state unit of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) identified 1,70,525 children not attending school, of whom 86,656 were boys and 83,869 girls. This number has decreased by almost 45%. And migration is no longer the sole reason for children to miss school. Location of the school at a large distance from home, unpleasant environment in the institution and fear of teachers have emerged as other factors.
Since November 2013, 45% OOSC have been found to be concentrated in five districts Yadgir, Raichur, Gulbarga, Koppal and Bellary account for 56,898 such kids. For Bangalore Urban South, Bangalore Urban North and Bangalore Rural, the figures stand at 3%, 1.82% and 1.74% respectively.
But despite the improvement, SSA’s mission of bringing down the OOSC rate to zero by August will be impossible to accomplish this year also.
SSA conducted the survey after the high court took up a suo motu case on the argument of activists that there were more than six lakh OOSC in the state. "It is a Herculean task to identify the exact number of OOSC. Only those students who leave school with transfer certificates and take admission in other schools after migration can be monitored. But there are many cases of students migrating without TCs," SSA officials said.
Measures like the Chinnara Angala programme and residential and non-residential schooling have helped the state bring kids to classrooms, Mohammad Mohsin, commissioner, department of public instruction told TOI.