At 44%, "progressive" Gujarat has higher than all-India Dalit out of school children

Government of India figures, released in the Rajya Sabha recently, have shockingly revealed that, of Gujarat’s nearly 1.59 lakh “out of school” children, 43.76 per cent are Dalits, which is one of the highest proportions in India. The revelation is particularly surprising because Gujarat has one of the lowest proportion of Dalit population in the country, less than seven per cent.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) Institute for Statistics defines “out of school” children as “the number of primary-school-age children not enrolled in primary or secondary school.” They include children who are not enrolled as well school dropouts.
While Dalits comprise of 16.6 per cent of the country’s population, they form about 32.42 per cent of the total “out of school” children in the country, 60.64 lakh.

Tamil Nadu and Punjab, both “progressive states”, have far fewer “out of school” children – as against Gujarat’s 1.59 lakh, Tamil Nadu has 57,529 and Punjab has 91,578 “out of school” children.

In Bihar, there are a whopping 11.70 lakh “out of school” children, one of the highest in the country.
In Tamil Nadu, Dalits constitute 20.5 per cent of the state’s population, in Punjab they constitute 31.9 per cent, and in Bihar the constitute 16 per cent.
Next to Dalits, 18.93 per cent of “out of school” children in Gujarat are tribals, and 13.74 per cent are Muslims. Tribals constitute about 15 per cent of the state’s population, while Muslims constitute around nine per cent.
The Government of India, interestingly, has quoted a private agency to provide an answer to the question on “out of school” children – the IMRB International (formerly Indian Market Research Bureau). It is not known why it did not quote National Sample Survey (NSS) data on this.

IMRB is said to be a multi-country market research, survey and business consultancy firm that offers a range of syndicated data and customized research services. Headquartered in Mumbai, with operations in over 15 countries. It is modeled on the lines of the British Market Research Bureau.

The reply to a question, asked in the Rajya Sabha by CPI MP KK Ragesh, has suggested that, despite the Right to Education and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, about 60.64 lakh children remain out of school across the country, and a great majority of them, 71.71 per cent, are Dalits, tribals and Muslims.
The reply, provided by Minister for Human Resources Smriti Irani, concerned “out of school” children in the age group 6 to 13, even as providing breakup of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and Muslims.
Of the total “out of school” in India, 60.64 lakh, while 32.4 per cent children are Dalits, 25.7 per cent children are Muslims and 16.6 per cent are Muslims.
Uttar Pradesh tops the list of “out of school” children, with 16.12 lakh, of which 56.05 lakh, or 37.77 per cent, are Dalits. Bihar comes next, with a total number of 11.70 lakh “out of school” children, of which 52.41 lakh, or 44.81 per cent, are Dalits.

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog