New Delhi:As many as 12.53 lakh students from across the country are out of school with the number of boys at 6.97 lakh and girls at 6.22 lakh, the government said in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
This information was shared by Minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar via a written reply to a question from Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and AA Rahim who sought details about the out-of-school children (OoSC). As per the data presented by the MoS, 9,30,531 OoSC students are at the elementary level of which 5,02,771 are boys, 4,27, 728 are girls and 32 are transgender.
As per the data, the maximum number of out-of-school children at the elementary level (age 6 to 14 years) were in Uttar Pradesh (3,96,655), followed by Bihar (1,34,252), Gujarat (1,06,885), Assam (80,739), Haryana (22,841), and Tamil Nadu (20,352). Similarly, at the secondary level, 3.22 lakh are counted as OoSC of which 1,94,350 are boys, 1,28,126 are women and 12 are transgender.
At the secondary level (aged between 14 to 18 years), states with maximum out-of-school children were found in Madhya Pradesh (84,788), followed by Odisha (54,634), Assam (48,795), Gujarat (36,522), and Andhra Pradesh (20,443), among others. The data at the secondary level did not mention the responses of several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tripura, Manipur, Bihar, and others.
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Responding further on steps taken by the government to bring these children back to mainstream schooling, Sarkar said, “The Department of School Education and Literacy is implementing an integrated centrally sponsored scheme for School education- Samagra Shiksha…Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided to States and UTs for undertaking various activities to reduce the number of Out of School Children (OoSC) including opening/strengthening of new schools up to senior secondary level, construction of school buildings & additional classrooms, setting up, up-gradation and running of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, setting up of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Avasiya Vidyalayas, free uniforms, free textbooks, transport allowance and undertaking enrolment and retention drives.”
Further, since 2021-22, financial assistance upto ₹ 2000 per annum is being provided for supporting OoSC of the age group of 16-19 years, belonging to socio-economically disadvantaged groups, for completing their education through NIOS/SIOS, for accessing course materials and certification, the reply said.
