Education for All: a distant dream for socially disadvantaged children, S. Venkatesan
 |
October 30, 2006: The Education for All goals focus on the need to provide learning opportunities at every stage in life, from infancy to adulthood. With only nine years remaining before 2015 – the target year for achieving these goals, progress is being made in reducing the number of primary school-age children who are not enrolled in school still distant |
|
dream for many children especially from socially disadvantaged households reveals the recent report published by UNESCO “Education for All: Global Monitoring Report 2007 with special focus on early childhood care and education - the forgotten link claims.
There are 77 million children in the world are not enrolled in school during the year 2004 and the largest numbers of out-of school children are in Nigeria, Pakistan and India together accounted about 20 million. The children most likely to be out of school and to drop out live in rural areas and come from the poorest households. On average, a child whose mother has no education is twice as likely to be out of school as one whose mother has some education and girls are also more likely never to attend school than boys While 117 girls were not in school for every 100 boys, their exclusion was particularly marked in the Arab States (134), and South and West Asia (129), and in individual countries such as Yemen (184), Iraq (176),
India (136) the report reveals. Further the report presents India’s situation based on official data and as well as independent surveys by NGOs. The results show that while state governments had estimated that 4.6 million out-of-school children aged 6 to 13 were out of school in 2004, the 2005 survey by Pratham, a NGO indicated that the number had almost been halved to 13.5 million.
This analysis further focuses on variation in results related to rural/urban, gender and social groups disparities in out of school children. The 6.9% rate for out-of-school children reflects rates of 6.2% for boys and 7.9% for girls. The rate in rural areas of 7.8% is significantly higher than the 4.3% in urban areas. In urban areas the rates for boys and girls are similar while in rural areas they are 6.8% for boys and 9.1% for girls. The variations by social group are much larger than those by gender or rural/urban.
The out-of-school rates were 10.0% for Muslims, 9.5% for scheduled tribes, 8.2% for scheduled castes, 6.9% for other backward castes and 3.7% for the remaining social groups. Another focus of the survey was the schooling experiences of disabled children. Around 4.3% of all out-of-school children are disabled. Of all disabled children, 38.1% are not attending school. Variations in the rates of out-of-school children across the country are wide.
They are highest in north-central and north-eastern India. Among the major states, the rates are highest in Bihar (17.0%), Jharkhand (10.9%), Assam (8.9%), West Bengal (8.7%), Madhya Pradesh (8.6%), Uttar Pradesh (8.2%) and Rajasthan (6.9%). By contrast, in the south, some states appear to have virtually achieved universal schooling for 6- to 13-year-olds: Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu record out-of-school rates between 0.5% and 2.1%. Almost half of all children out of school live in Bihar (3.2 million) and Uttar Pradesh (3.0 million), but seven other states have at least half a million each: West Bengal (1.2 million), Madhya Pradesh (1.1 million), Rajasthan (0.8 million), Jharkhand (0.6 million), and Assam, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh with around 0.5 million each.
The situation varies not only across states but also within them. In 48 out of 598 districts nationwide, over 50,000 children are out of school. Ten states have at least one of these districts, but the majority are in Bihar (20), Uttar Pradesh (15) and West Bengal (4). More detailed estimates of the likelihood of being out of school depending on individual background characteristics and state of residence were calculated. For instance, over 30% of rural Muslim children are out of school in Bihar, around 17% in Jharkhand, 13% in Uttar Pradesh and 11% in West Bengal. Scheduled caste children have out-of-school rates of 22% in rural Bihar and 26% in rural Jharkhand. Of the major states, West Bengal has the highest rate for scheduled tribe children: 16%.
Perhaps surprisingly, the numbers of scheduled caste and Muslim boys who are out of school are higher than those for girls. This is not the case for other backward castes or scheduled tribes. The report advocates inclusive approach for achieving education for all goals within stipulated time period.
This involves of policies such as abolishing school fees, providing financial incentives to reduce household dependence on child labour and programmes that have been effective in extending education generally and, more specifically, in identifying and overcoming the barriers that socially marginalized groups face.
Source: UNESCO |