Literacy & Education
Of the Billion people we have, 460 Million people are illiterate. Which stands at 44.8% of the population as per 2001 census.
Female illiteracy stands at 54.3%. Some statistics say illiteracy is actually at 46%.....
Of the 200 Million kids aged 6-14 nearly 60 Million are out-of-school for various reasons. nearly 40% of those who enroll for primary education drop out before 5th grade. Of those who make it past 5th grade only 35% go past 8th grade and only 60% of them finish high school. in AP the drop out rate between Ist and VIII grades is nearly 62%.
75% of Schools in rural India (you have to remember 72% of India is rural) have only one teacher for several classes IN A SINGLE CLASS ROOM. And less than 33% of the girls of age 6-11 go to school.
Put it in a different way, for every 100 children of school going age in the country only 70 enroll in class I, of them around 30 dropout before class V. Only 10 out of the 30 actually go past 8th grade and around 6 finish high school. some of the rest might be finishing high school in the later years, Statistics don't show it. In any case the total high school graduation rate is around 5-6 for every 100 children of the age 6-14.
All those who complete 5th grade are counted as literates.
NCERT's 5th survey found that more than 50% of the primary schools do not have any drinking water facility. Close to 85% Prim. Schools had no toilets. and around 7% of the schools do not have any buildings at all (i.e. nearly 70,000 schools do not exist physically)
Contrary to the popular belief:
1. Only 5% of the out-of-school children do so because their parents want them to work.
2. More than 30% of the out-of-school children do so because either their parents or the children are "not interested" in going to school. this is not because they don't understand the "importance of education", they do so because of the quality of infrastructure, teaching is so poor, it has made them cynical about the usefulness of education, the whole process is considered a waste of time.
3. People are more than willing to spend money out of their pocket to send their children to school. Studies suggest that in a given year people spend anywhere from Rs.100 to Rs.4000 per child on primary education. more than 50% of the private (household) expenditure on primary education comes from rural families. The total household expenditure on primary education is nearly 40% of total govt. expenditure on primary education.
4. Primary education for a sizeable number of families is not actually free, A large number of students in govt. schools pay tuition fee, examination fee and other fees.
5. Failure to Pass exams is one major reason for urban school dropouts.
In 123 of the total 593 districts in the country the female literacy rate is less than 10% most of these districts lie in the BIMARU (Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, UP) states. Most (not all) of these women are dalits. Denying the poor access to knowledge goes back a long way, we can trace most if it back to the Manu Smriti of 500BC. One of the laws in Manu Smriti says, "If a once born (sudra - Other castes were twice born) listens to the Vedas, his ears are to be filled with molten tin or lac, If he dares to recite the Vedic texts, his body is to be split".
Democracy, voting rights and vote banks changed the scenario, but the levels of education still didn't change much. The dropout rates before class VIII for non SC/ST children is around 60% while that of the SCs is above 70% and STs above 80%. Almost 75% of the 60 Million out-of-school children are in 6 states AP, BI,MA,R,U, (Bihar, MP, Rajasthan, UP) & WBengal
Kerala is the only state in the country with a 91% literacy rate (Excluding low population states such as Mizoram). compare it with the 67% in WB and 61% in AP (below national avg of 64%).
The way Kerala spends its money on education is strikingly different from other states. only 48% of the schools in Kerala are fee free. whereas in other states such as WB as many as 84% of the schools are fee free.
While in WB 60% of the rural primary school children get Free Text books and stationery only 2% of the kids in rural Kerala get Free text books and stationery.
In most states only 25% of the household income (in the lowest income group) is spent in the rural areas for primary education, Low income group households dole out as much as 35% of their income for primary education in Kerala.
The State budget for education in Kerala is 25% comparable to the 26% in WB and 21% in AP. While 46% of the kids never enroll for education in some other states, in Kerala only 2% kids do so.
We may have to look into history for the reasons behind this. Kerala had strong education movements since pre-independence. And had a head start in educating its people, Adi Sankaracharya, the revolutionary, hails from Kerala. But before we delve too much into history we have to look at the way Kerala spends its education budget. While Other states spend 80+% on Free education in Govt. Schools, Kerala spends only 48%.
Budget allocation for free primary education in private schools is as much as 15% in other states while in Kerala its about 48%.
Grant of scholarships in other states is 0.5% while in Kerala it is 10%. Transport Subsidy is also higher in Kerala at 5.4% compared to 2.3% in other states. Some of the amounts also come out of budgets for Higher education etc. in Kerala.
This should be an eye opener to all leftists in India...... 60% of the rural primary schools in Kerala are private compared to the 11% in other places including WB.
We need to digress a bit and look at the history of the education system in India before we look at the higher education in India and if we actually are going to build a stronger and vibrant India with its present system.
more later
-keshav
No comments:
Post a Comment