The rot in the field of education is the most noticeable. Bihar is the only state where more than half the people - 52.5 per cent - are illiterate. While male literacy is just over 60 per cent, only about 33 per cent of females are literate.
Education among backward sections is particularly low. According to 1998 figures, while only about 27 per cent of Scheduled Tribes are literate (including Jharkhand), less than 20 per cent of Scheduled Castes have ever had any education - the lowest in the country.
Poor Attandance
Bihar's net attendance ratio at the primary level is just 41 per cent, the lowest in India, below second-lowest Rajasthan's 55 per cent and way below the national average of 66 per cent. Net attendance falls down to a meagre 9 per cent by the time students reach senior secondary level.
Child labour contributes significantly to low attendance. Poverty forces parents to turn children as young as four into labourers. A Planning Commission survey two years ago found child labour prevalent in at least four out of every five villages, to say nothing of the cities. Nearly half to three-fourths of children in these villages were working as labourers, with little time to study. A number of these children work as household labourers, not just in their village but in nearby towns as well.
Rural Education
The survey also indicates that there is little private enterprise in rural education, and poorly-maintained government-run primary schools are the only available option. Thousands of these schools are single-teacher institutions. Their buildings stand dilapidated, roofs leak and plaster falls. Many schools have actually been forced to turn into "outdoor" ventures. According to the survey, while only half the rural school buildings were in a usable condition in north Bihar, just a quarter were in use in the south.
Rural Education
The survey also indicates that there is little private enterprise in rural education, and poorly-maintained government-run primary schools are the only available option. Thousands of these schools are single-teacher institutions. Their buildings stand dilapidated, roofs leak and plaster falls. Many schools have actually been forced to turn into "outdoor" ventures. According to the survey, while only half the rural school buildings were in a usable condition in north Bihar, just a quarter were in use in the south.
The survey also found the quality of teaching to be low and the composition of teaching staff unusual. Hardly 15 per cent teachers came from the same village where the school was located in south Bihar. In the north, it was a still lower 5 per cent. This affected the teaching and other associated activities of these schools.
On an average, primary schools in north Bihar have nearly three male and one female teacher. The schools in the south have one male teacher and practically no female teachers.
University Education
University education is in a worse state. The government doesn't pay salary to teachers, who in turn don't bother to turn up to take classes. The students are anyway too busy politicking to attend. The mushrooming of sub-standard private colleges and perpetually late academic schedules has made a mockery of the education system.
Many of these "colleges" have been openly selling degrees for years.
Hundreds of students, as a result, emigrate to Delhi and elsewhere in search of better education and better opportunities every year - draining the state's brain power inestimably.