65.4 million Indians in age group of 5-19 years never attended school: Census

As many as 65.4 million people in the age group of 5-19 years in the country have never attended any school while another 44.9 million dropped out of schools in the last decade.

As many as 65.4 million people in the age group of 5-19 years in the country have never attended any school while another 44.9 million dropped out of schools in the last decade, according to the 2011 Census data.

As many as 65.4 million people in the age group of 5-19 years in the country have never attended any school, Census 2011 data show. (HT File Photo)

There are 380.1 million people in the age group of 5-19 years, of which 269.8 million (71%) are attending educational institutions. In all, 44.9 million (11.8%) people have attended schools earlier, while 65.4 million (17.2%) have never been to a school.

There were about 6.57 million disabled people in the age group of 5-19 at Census 2011 in India, according to the data.

The disabled population of 1.75 million (26.7%) has never attended any school, 0.8 million (12.1%) has dropped out of schools in the last decade while 4.02 million people (61.2%) are attending educational institutions.

The proportion of disabled persons who never attended any educational institution in 2011, was found to be highest among persons with ‘multiple disability’ (54.4%), followed by ‘mental illness’ (50.3%) and ‘mental retardation’ (41.2%) whereas persons with ‘any other disability’ (17.7%) show the least percentage.

Further, out of 4.02 million disabled persons attending educational institutions, 2.28 million (56.7%) are males and 1.74 million (43.3%) are females.

In 2001, about 3.3 million (50.5%) out of 65.3 lakh disabled persons in the same age group reported attending educational institutions. There is an improvement of about 11 percentage points for the disabled persons attending schools in the age group 5-19 during the decade 2001-2011.

It is further noticed that disabled persons with ‘any other disability’ show the highest percentage (71.2%) in attending educational institution followed by ‘seeing’ (68%), ‘hearing’ (67%), ‘movement’ (59.6%), ‘speech’ (58.9%), ‘mental retardation’ (47.2%), ‘multiple disability’ (37.2%) and least with ‘mental illness’ (34.1%).

Maximum percentage of disabled persons who attended educational institution earlier is seen in ‘movement’ (17.7%) followed by ‘mental illness’ (15.5%), and least in ‘multiple disability’ (8.4%).