Over 3 lakh children in Assam are out of school

Updated on: Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Guwahati: Even though one of the objectives of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was that all children should be in school, Assam still has 3,39,100 children who do not go to school.
Statistics reveal that of these out of schoolchildren, 1,96,774 (boys 1,02,418 and girls 94,356) are in the age group 6-11, while 1,42,326 (boys 75,863 and girls 66,463) are aged 11-14.

These â€œout of school childrenâ€ are mostly from remote areas and very poor families. A large number of them are working children living in urban slums and are categorised as the Hard-to-Reach group.

The dropout rate at both primary and upper primary levels in the State is also very high, much higher than at the national level. The dropout rate from classes I to V is 44.27% against 25.43% at the national level. At the upper primary level (classes VI to VIII), it is 63.56% against 46.03% at the national level. The literacy rate in the State is 63.3% (71.3%for men and 54.6% for women).

As for the SSA objective of focussing on elementary education with emphasis on education for life, the records reveal that quality of education is very poor due to untrained teachers. About 36% of teachers at the primary level and 10% at the upper primary level are untrained. About 20% of the 30,068 primary schools are single-teacher institutions.

About infrastructure, only 6% of the primary schools have toilet facility for girls, while about 30% of schools do not have drinking water facility. About 2,305 schools are without RCC or any permanent structure, while 156 schools are functioning without any building.

Over 3 lakh children in Assam are out of school

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