The road to education is difficult to travel on for about 31,000 children aged below 14 years in Punjab. Over 50 per cent of them are between eight and 14 years old and none of them go to school.
Just six districts — Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Tarn Taran, Moga, and Muktsar — formed over 50 per cent share of total out-of-school kids in 20 districts. With the figure for out-of-school-children (OoSC) standing tall at 30939, despite the State Government's claims of adopting a slew of measures to ensure 'quality education for all', the real picture of existing state of affairs in education sector has come into light.
The figures were revealed in a household survey conducted by the State Government in December 2010. Topping the list is State’s ‘industrial hub’ Ludhiana district with 4610 OoSC, followed by Amritsar (3313), Tarn Taran (3,103), Muktsar (2,208), Jalandhar (2,008), and Moga with 1,856 OoSC. With these six districts forming over 50 per cent share (55 per cent) of total figure, it paints a serious picture of State’s education scenario.
However, districts who have been able to check the trend are Nawanshahar with just 170 OoSC, followed by Barnala (279) and Fatehgarh Sahib (342). What's more, the children between the age group of eight and 14 years (16,818 OoSC which is 54 per cent of the total) is higher than the combined figure of the total students in the age groups of below and of six years (6,941), and seven to eight years (7,180). However, to control the school drop-outs, the State Government had blown its own horn while launching ambitious Child Tracking System (CTS).
That too proved a damp-squib providing no hope for improvement, as far as out-of-school students are concerned. The State Education Department had started CTS, some three years ago, to increase the number of young school-going children. For the purpose, special volunteers were recruited to collect details of all school dropouts in all districts and were asked to convince poor parents to send their children to Government schools for their proper education.
Also, the State education authorities issued clear directions to its officers to fill forms of all dropouts along with their photos. As many as 39,197 forms were filled under CTS but without photos. “The photos of dropouts help in identifying them as it happens that the parents took their children out of schools after enrolling them with the Government's effort and send them to toil hard for generating family's income,” a senior Government official told reporters.
According to a door-to-door survey, conducted two-year back by State Education Department, revealed that out of the total 42,70,985 children between six and 14 years, 1,00,457 were not enrolled in schools.
