In PM's home district Mehsana, 20% teens, age 14-18, "not enrolled", one of the highest in India; 55% are wage earners

Percent working children, age 14-18, India average

The new Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2017: Beyond Basics), an annual survey carried by the high profile NGO Pratham, has found that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home district Mehsana has a whopping 20.3% children in the age group 14-18, who are not enrolled in either school or college.
While this is against the average of 14.4% children in this age group who have not been enrolled in a survey carried out in 28 Indian districts, as many as 21 of these districts were found to have a lower percentage of children in the "not enrolled" category.
Significantly, the survey also shows that a major consequence of not getting into formal education is prevalence of child labour in this age group. In Mehsana, as many as 54.5% of children in this age group were found to have "worked for 15 or more days in the last month" of the survey. This is against the all-India figure of 41.6%.
Only two districts out of 28 were found to have a higher percentage of those going to work -- Rajasthan's Udaipur (64.3%) and Maharashtra' Ahmednagar (55.2%).
The report says, across India, "a substantial proportion of youth in the 14-18 age group are working (42%), regardless of whether they are enrolled in formal education or not. Of those who work, 79% work in agriculture – almost all on their own family’s farm. Also, more than three quarters of all youth do household chores daily – 77 % of males and 89% of females."
While till now all ASER surveys, carried out every year since 2005, confined their analysis to age group 6 to 16, in 2017, for the first time, it focused on an older age group, those who have moved beyond the elementary school age.

Status of education: Mehsana, Gujarat

The survey finds that, of the 28 districts surveyed, in 24 states, Kerala's Ernakulam is the best performer, with just about 1.4% children in the "not enrolled" category, followed by Maharashtra's Ahmednagar (4.3%) and Satara (6%), Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam and Assam's Kamrup (7.2%), Manipur's Bishnupur and Nagaland's Kohima (7.5%), Himachal Pradesh's Kangra (7.8%), Uttarakhand's Dehradun (8.8%), Tamil Nadu's Madurai and Haryana's Sonepat (8.9).
The six districts performing worse than Gujarat's Mehsana are -- Jharkhand's Purbi Singhbhum (21%), Madhya Pradesh's Rewa (28.1%) and Bhopal (31.5%), Meghalaya's Jaintia Hills (22%), Rajasthan's Udaipur (22.7%), and Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor (28.7%).
A further breakup by ASER shows that, in Mehsana, 17.9% boys in the age group 14-18 are not enrolled, as against 22.4% girls. Interesting, in the higher age group, 17-18, 36.7% children of Mehsana are found to be "not enrolled" -- 34.6% boys and 38.7% girls.
ASER notes, the issue of enrolment in the age group 14-18 is particularly important because there is already "near-universal enrolment and automatic promotion through the elementary stage" resulting in "more and more children successfully completing elementary schooling", with official figures suggesting that enrollment in Std VIII almost doubled in the decade between 2004-5 and 2014-15."
"Overall, 86% of youth in the 14-18 age group are within the formal education system, either in school or in college", the report says, adding, "More than half of all youth in this age group are enrolled in Std X or below (54%). Another 25% are either in Std XI or XII, and 6% are enrolled in undergraduate and other degree courses."
Across all the districts, it was found that "the enrollment gap between males and females in the formal education system increases with age", ASER says, adding, "There is hardly any difference between boys’ and girls’ enrollment at age 14; but at age 18, 32% females are not enrolled as compared to 28% males."
"The proportion of youth not enrolled in school or college increases with age. At age 14, the percentage of youth not enrolled is 5%. By age 18, this figure increases to 30%", the report says.

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

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."

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.

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.

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."

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.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

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.

A sector under siege? War and real estate: Navigating uncertainty in India's expanding market

I was a little surprised when I received an email alert from a top real estate consultant, Anarock Group , titled "Exploring War’s Effects on Indian Real Estate—When Conflict Meets Concrete," authored by its regional director and head of research, Dr. Prashant Thakur. I had thought that the business would wholeheartedly support what is considered a strong response to the dastardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Operation Sindoor.

Search This Blog