Over 1 cr children are out of school in India

NEW DELHI: Even as the government seeks to improve access to ‘elite’ higher education institutes by introducing 27% reservation for OBCs, a large section of children in the age group of 6 to 13 years, especially those from scheduled castes, OBCs and Muslims, continue to remain outside the fold of formal education. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh continue to be the worst offenders.

An Educational Consultants of India/Ministry of Human Resource Development sponsored survey by IMRB in November last year found that in India, the total population of children in the age group of 6 to 13 years was 19.4 crore.

Of them, 1.3 crore were out of school. In numerical terms, in Madhya Pradesh, the largest sub-group comprised the other backward classes (OBCs) — 6.6 crore of the relevant age group population. The number of out of school OBC children was 46 lakh, taking the average to 6.9%, close to the national average of 6.94%.

In case of the Scheduled Caste population in the same age group, the all India figure is 3.8 crore, of whom, 31 lakh children are out of school, taking the out of school percentage to 8.2%. In case of Scheduled Tribes, of the total population of 1.7 crore, 16.5 lakh (9.5%) children are out of school.

In states like Uttar Pradesh, nearly 1.3 lakh of the 1.5 crore OBC population in the relevant age group, is out of school. The out of school children population of the state is 2.9 lakh, OBCs account for nearly 43% of the total.

In terms of population in the age group of 6 to 13 years, OBCs account for 40%. When it comes to the SC population, in Uttar Pradesh, they account for 8.7 lakh of the 6 to 13 age group, that is 23% of the relevant age group population and they account for nearly 17% of the out of school population.

The Bihar story follows the same pattern, the out of school percentage among OBCs is 14.8%, compared to 6.3% among the non-SC/ST/OBC /Muslim population.