EXTENSION OF TARGET UNDER SARVA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN
	Tuesday, April 29, 2008
	LOK SABHA  The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) programme is being implemented in all districts of the country to achieve the goal of universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in a time bound manner, in mission mode.  Consequently, the number of out of school children, which was 320 lakh in 2001-02, has come down to 75.97 lakh in 2007-08, as per State reports.  A statement showing number of out of school children as reported by States upto March 2007 is at annexure.             A rigorous system of monitoring of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has been put in place which includes, inter alia, monthly and quarterly progress reports and review meetings, furnishing of annual elementary school statistics, field monitoring by 41 independent monitoring institutions and six monthly independent reviews by experts on the progress of the programme.  In addition rigorous financial audits and concurrent financial reviews are done in the State SSA programmes.             This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Shri M.A.A. Fatmi in reply to a question in Lok Sabha today. ANNEXURE SI. NO. State/ UT Out of school children as on March 2007 1 Andhra Pradesh 264013 2 Arunachal Pradesh 30565 3 Assam 338834 4 Bihar 2119584 5 Chhattisgarh 123632 6 Goa 7699 7 Gujarat 134643 8 Haryana 238847 9 Himachal Pradesh 5624 10 Jammu & Kashmir 108560 11 Jharkhand 209662 12 Karnataka 174533 13 Kerala 20790 14 Madhya Pradesh 296979 15 Maharashtra 136892 16 Manipur 54351 17 Meghalaya 37234 18 Mizoram 4913 19 Nagaland 35335 20 Orissa 537841 21 Punjab 227645 22 Rajasthan 163894 23 Sikkim 3204 24 Tamil Nadu 103261 25 Tripura 15376 26 Uttar Pradesh 785524 27 Uttarakhand 22230 28 West Bengal 1357601 29 A & N Island 133 30 Chandigarh 5505 31 D & N Haveli 1614 32 Daman & Diu 201 33 Delhi 30001 34 Lakshadweep 168 35 Puducherry 326   INDIA 7597214

 

Bihar, Bengal put record number of kids back in school
5 Jun 2008, 0203 hrs IST,Akshaya Mukul,TNN
 

NEW DELHI: Bihar and West Bengal, always the subject of ridicule among policy planners, have created a record of sorts by contributing the maximum in bringing down the national figure of out-of-school children in the age-group of 6-14 from 75.97 lakh in March last year to 45.05 lakh in March this year.

What lends further credence to the efforts of these states is that the maximum number of children who have started going back to school are Muslims, SCs and STs.

Take Bihar. The state has paid an immense tribute to the late Madan Mohan Jha, jokingly called a part-time bureaucrat and full-fledged educationist, who died as principal secretary, education, last year and made tireless efforts to drag Bihar from the bottom of the educational heap.

His state has done the unthinkable by bringing down the out-of-school children in the age group of 6-14 to 10.10 lakh this year from a mammoth 21.19 lakh last year.

In March 2008, the Muslim child population in Bihar in the age group 6-14 was 33.06 lakh. Out of them, only 2.83 lakh were out of school.

Compare it to March 2007 when the number of out-of-school Muslim children stood at 4.24 lakh. Now only 8.6% of Muslim children (6-14) are out of school in the state.

A similar feat has been achieved in the case of SC children. Now only 2.71 lakh SC children are out of school.
In March 2007, 4.99 lakh SC children had not been to school. The population of SC children in Bihar stands
at 38.10 lakh.

After Jharkhand was carved out, Bihar does not have much of an ST population. Still, the magic continues. Out of the 2.41 lakh ST children in the age group of 6-14, now only 25,901 are out of school.

In March 2007, more than 45,000 ST children were out of the education system. All this shows how the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has now become firmly entrenched.

The HRD ministry attributes Bihar's success to a team of dedicated officials who have gone out of the way to improvise education so that it becomes inclusive for all social groups.

West Bengal is on the same pedastal as Bihar. Often chided for its poor record among minorities, the number of out-of-school children in the state is now 1.13 lakh, a remarkable decrease from last year's 3.67 lakh. Now only 2.5% of Muslim children population of 45.27 lakh is out of school.

Among SCs, the out-of-school children now is 1.05 lakh, a sharp decrease from 3.25 lakh last year. Now only 2.8% of SC children population of 37.70 lakh is out of school. The state has also done remarkably well in getting ST children to school. From 92,225 out-of-school ST children last year, only 30,331 remain to get in now.

In the case of Muslim children, states like Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka have not done well since the number of out-of-school children has increased. Performing states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have also not been able to maintain their overall good performance when it comes to Muslim children