More children in rural areas preferring pvt schools: report

Updated on: Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Enrolling in private schools is no more confined to urban centres alone as an education report, released today, says increasing number of children in rural areas are also preferring the private ones.

Though the report did not specify any reason for this, it says enrolment between 6 and 14 age group in private schools rose from 18.7 per cent in 2006 to 25.6 per cent in 2011 in all states except Bihar.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for rural areas 2011 prepared by Pratham, says in states like Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Manipur and Meghalaya, there has been an increase of over 10 per cent points in private school enrolment in the past five years.

The report released by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, says between 30 and 50 per cent of children in rural areas of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland are enrolled in private schools.

The report was prepared based on a survey covering 558 districts, over three lakh households and six lakh children and 16 thousand villages.

Though enrolment in rural areas between 60 and 14 age group stood at an impressive figure at 96.7 per cent, the report says attendance has shown a decline from 73.4 per cent in 2007 to 70.9 per cent in 2011 in rural primary areas.

In Bihar, for example, attendance of children dropped by nine per cent during the past four years while in Madhya Pradesh, it dropped from 67 per cent to 54.5 per cent in four years. In Uttar Pradesh, the decline in attendance was about seven per cent.

The report said basic reading levels also showed a decline in many states across north India, with the number of children in class V able to read class II level dropped from 53.7 per cent in 2010 to 48.2 per cent in 2011.

"Such declines was, however, not visible in southern states," it said while indicating that the southern states also fare over the northern states on several other parameters.

The ASER report also reflected a decline among students in mathematics level. It said proportion of class III children able to solve a two-digit subtraction problem with borrowing has dropped from 36.3 per cent in 2010 to 29.9 per cent in 2011.

Among class V children, it said the ability to do a similar subtraction problem has dropped from 70.9 per cent in 2010 to 61 per cent in 2011.

Only Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and northeastern states have shown improvement from last year to this year, it said.

The report said flow of grants under Sarva Sikshya Abhiyan improved significantly, especially between 2008-09 and 2009-10.

It indicated a marginal improvement in proportion of schools complying with RTE norms on pupil-teacher ratio, better toilet provisions for girls and libraries though it revealed no major changes in overall supporting infrastructure over last year.

More children in rural areas preferring pvt schools: report

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