The current year has witnessed a huge return of students from the minority and Scheduled Caste communities to the formal education system, reports Chetan Chauhan.
The current year has witnessed a huge return of students from the minority and Scheduled Caste communities to the formal education system, resulting in the figures of out-of-school children dropping to 45 lakhs from last year’s 75 lakhs.
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The rate of out-of-school minority students joining schools had been the fastest among the educationally backward classes. New HRD Ministry data indicates that the inclusive education policies of the UPA Government have borne results. The data shows that of the 30 lakh out-of-school children who have enrolled, the highest among educationally weaker sections were from the minorities, mostly Muslims.
The good news for those advocating Muslims to opt for the formal education system is that about 4 lakh out-of-school minority children joined schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) this year. This is the largest number in the last five years.
It has resulted in a fall of 2.2 per cent in out-of-school children from minority communities. From 5.6 per cent in 2007-08, the percentage has fallen to 3.4 in 2007-08.
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In the last few years, the Central government had given assistance to state governments to open new schools under SSA in 150 minority-dominated districts. Special coaching classes have also been organised in some states. The effort is now showing results.
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In the last few years, the Central government had given assistance to state governments to open new schools under SSA in 150 minority-dominated districts. Special coaching classes have also been organised in some states. The effort is now showing results.
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Bihar, UP and West Bengal led the show by bringing over 4 lakh out-of-school children from minority communities to schools. But in BJP-ruled states such as Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, the number of out-of-school minority students has increased.
Similarly, the rate of out-of-school Scheduled Caste students has fallen by about 1.63 per cent, with states such as Bihar, Haryana, West Bengal, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir doing well. More than 6 lakh SC students joined schools this year, even though 9.7 lakh SC children are still out of schools.
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The disappointment is for the Scheduled Tribes, for whom out-of-school percentage has fallen by only 0.77 per cent to 3.72 per cent. Only 50,000 out-of-school tribal children joined schools this year.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
