Child labour, migration, transport and access are responsible for keeping a whopping 1,70,525 kids, that’s 63% of children between the ages of 11 and 13 out of school. The government appears to be playing its cards right, at least on paper, with BEOs, Deputy Directors of Public Instruction and the Department of Women and Child Welfare all responsible for ensuring that children enroll in school. Very little happens on ground however. The lack of detailed surveys by enumerators has left experts in the dark about what causes school dropouts and how to prevent them, reports Ralph Alex Arakal.
In a disturbing trend, children are continuing to drop out of school in the state. Going by a recent survey by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) a whopping 63 per cent of children between 11 and 13 years old are out of school in Karnataka, with many failing to make it to high school post the seventh grade.
“Child labour and migration are among the major reasons for dropouts in the state and we need to address these issues to bring back children to schools,” says activist, Kathyayini Chamaraj, executive trustee of CIVIC Bengaluru.