Editing Rural India (section)

== CSers in a Primary School ==

Illiteracy is major problem in rural development. According to a nationwide survey that was carried out by IMRB-SRI of school-going children, aged 6 to 13, almost 6.94% of children in this age group are out of school. Of these, a massive 68.26% are those who never went to school. 31.74% are those who dropped out after one or more years of schooling. That there is a clear urban-rural divide in elementary education in the country becomes apparent, on studyingthese findings. Of the number of school going children in the age group 6-13 years in rural areas, 7.8% are out of school. The comparative percentage is 4.34% in urban areas. Incidentally, more girls than boys are out of school. This is especially so in the age-group of 11-13 years, where approximately 10% of the girls do not go to school, as against 6.5% boys. "This is primarily because families expect girls to help out at home. Also, there is the thought that "ladki paraya dhan hai- iskopara kar kyafaayda. "which is acutely prevalent in rural areas. Finally, there is the distance factor- many children have to walk upto 3-4 kms to reach the school, which again becomes a de-motivator," says A V i Surya, Research Director of IMRB-SRI. Among those children who are attending school, an overwhelming 74.51% are in government schools, 22.95% are i in private recognized schools, 1.85% in private unrecognized schools and .59% in madarsas and Alternative Innovative Education (AIE) Centres, started under the Sarva Siksha Ab-hiyan of the Government. The proportion of out-of-school children is relatively higher in Muslims (9.97%) and Scheduled Tribes (9.54%). The Scheduled Castes follow, with almost 8.17% of the children from this category, not going to school. This is probably attributable to social restrictions within these groups. Also. according to Chanchal Sinha of Child Relief & You (CRY), "The proportion of government-run schools is coming down. The most affected, therefore are children from these marginalised and weaker sections -who have no option but to use government schools." However, the disturbing trend is that even amongst those children who are enrolled in schools, the levels of comprehension arent that great. For example, as per the ASER survey, 35% of all children in the age group 7-14 could not read simple paragraphs and close to 52% could not read a short story Also, 41% of children could do neither two digit subtraction problem nor division problems. Then, there is the problem of drop-outs. The IMRB-SRI survey, however, puts the percentage of drop-outs as being the highest among those, who dropped out after completing class V and class II (20.5% each). Next is the percentage of those who dropped out after class III (17.5%). The silver lining, however, is that the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan that the government had initiated seems to have had some impact, in that the number of out-of-school children have come down, from the time the Abhiyan was launched five years ago. However, according to CRY'S Sinha, we are still far away from the Abhiyans objective of ensuring that all children complete at least eight years of elementary schooling. "We should ensure that all children are in formal schools until the age of 18. The need is to increase the spend on education to at least 6% of the GDP from the current 4.2%. Also, the Common School System should be implemented soon, to ensure access, equality and quality in education," he says.