Survey on out-of-school kids

1 January 2013

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 1 JAN: The state government is all set to conduct a survey of all children living across the state to ascertain the number of children who are still out of school.
This child survey will be held on 13 January in every booth area of all districts under the supervision of the district project officer of Sarva Siksha Mission.
 “One of the conditions of the Right to Education (RTE) Act is to enroll each and every child in the neighbourhood school. So, the government is all set to conduct a survey of all children in the age group of 0 to 14 years ( up to 18 years for CWSN) of all families residing in any particular habitation”, said an official.
The child survey contains details of the child like age, sex, caste, disability status, migration status, disadvantage group, weaker section, guardian details, class-wise information, nature of institution, enrollment status and out of school children, the officer said.
As per the order, the enumerator will be all para-teachers, Siksha Bandhus and Special Educators. Supervisor of the booth-wise survey will be head of the institution who will co-operate with the Circle Project Co-ordinator for completion of the survey and compilation of the work.
According to the survey, it has been observed with concern that though the RTE Act is in place, underprivileged children are often being denied their rights. When conducted in 2007, the survey had found that 7.8 per cent children between six and 14 years of age were out of school which has declined to 4.6 per cent in 2010. However, the figure remains higher than the national average of 3.5 per cent in 2010.
The State has the fifth highest percentage of out-of-school children following Meghalaya (7.2 per cent), Rajasthan (5.8 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (5.2 per cent), and Assam (5 per cent). Neighbouring Bihar had a higher number of out-of-school children than West Bengal just a couple of years ago, but has now achieved parity with the national average, according to the survey.