SC/ST dropout rates high

The school dropout rate for SC/ST students is much higher than that of other categories, writes Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Oct 22, 2006, 13:44:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Even as the debate over reservation for the weaker sections continue in the wake of the recent Supreme Court orders, high dropout rate among Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe children still remains a challenge for the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry.

Figures released by the ministry on Friday said that as many as 37 per cent Scheduled Caste students and 49 per cent Scheduled Tribe students stop studying after initial years of schooling. While the dropout rate of other category of students has witnessed a phenomenal fall, the rate still remains high for SC/ST students as compared to the figures in 2001-02. “Reducing the figure still remains a challenge,” the ministry said in a statement.

HRD minister Arjun Singh has proposed a pre-matriculation scholarship for the SC/ST and other backward classes (OBCs) and girl students in his comments on the 11th Five-Year Plan approach paper of the Planning Commission. The ministry only gives scholarships to post-matriculation students.

What is still a worrying factor for HRD ministry officials is the fact that 73 lakh children are still out of school. SC/ST and minority children make a sizeable chunk of that figure.

The government has achieved some success in this area though. The figure was 2.3 crore in 2003. “The focus is now to bring those children into schools who cannot be reached easily by improving the quality of learning under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),” the statement read.

Despite the challenges, the overall enrolment under SSA has gone up significantly, especially at the primary level. The government is expecting universalisation of enrolment in the next few years. The gross enrolment figure is now pegged at 98 per cent as compared to 90 per cent in 2004-05.

Even if the dropout rate (31 per cent) is taken into account, the net enrolment ratio has risen to 82 per cent from 72 per cent during the corresponding figure.

“A large number of education guarantee schemes and alternative and innovative schools have been mainstreamed, giving an opportunity to many children to study in regular schools,” the statement said.

The gender gap has also closed with improvement in enrolment of girl students. The gender parity rate at primary level in many states has risen to over 90 per cent. It is 83 per cent at the upper primary level.

SSA addresses the need of over 209 crore children in 11 lakh habitations. As many as 9.72 lakh primary schools and 36.95 lakh teachers are covered under this flagship programme of the government.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
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.Read More

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