Activists contest claim over dip in number of out-of-school children

SSA puts figure at 37,000, down from 1.7 lakh last year

 A year ago, a survey released by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) found 1.7 lakh out-of-school children (OOSC) in the State.

The SSA now claims to have reduced this figure to around 37,000. However, child rights activists are of the opinion that this figure is far from the truth.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Adoni Syed Saleem, State Project Director, SSA, said, “As many as 17,000 OOSC are within the State and 20,000 are those who have migrated to other states,” he said. Of these latest figures, the highest number of school dropouts are in the districts of Bengaluru Urban, Kalaburagi and Yadgir.

“In these districts, the number of OOSC is between 2,000 and 3,000 each. In the rest of the State, the figure ranges from 500 to 1,000,” he said.

When asked what action would be initiated to bring back children who have migrated to other states, Saleem said: “As of now, we are concentrating on bringing 17,000 OOSC within the State back to school.”

When the department first published the survey in February last year, a number of activists contested the figure of 1.7 lakh. For example, a pilot survey, carried out in Yadgir by NGO Don Bosco Centre for Social Action since 2011 and updated in 2013, showed that in eight villages in the district, there were 900 OOSC.

However, the OOSC survey of SSA shows only 11,197 school dropouts in the entire district having several hundred villages.

Also, prior to the survey, the school education department had put the figure of OOSC at 51,994. However, an analysis submitted by Kathyayini Chamaraj, a social activist and an intervener in the suo motu case initiated by the High Court of Karnataka, put the total figure of OOSC at around six lakh, based on data from previous years.

“I still do not believe that the latest figure of 37,000 is totally correct. We are in the process of mobilising NGOs to cross-check these figures. There was no proper mechanism to conduct the survey in the first place.

On the question of migrated children, we had advised the government to immediately identify them and take necessary action. However, now these migrated children are lost,” she said.