Educationists: State concealing real number of out of school students

Educationists across the state have recently written to the state education department taking a dig at the delay in finding out of school students in the state despite a court order in November 2017. In a letter addressed to the state education minister Vinod Tawde, NGOs have raised concerns over the fact that merely a month before the deadline stated by the court, the government has not initiated the survey.

In November 2017, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court had asked the state education department to submit a fresh report of total number of students who have been found out of school by March 31, 2018. The court had also asked the government to notify civic officials at the local corporations within six weeks.

"Despite the court order the government has shown no readiness to conduct the survey. After the court order, over 80 NGOs have written to the government stating that they would give full support towards conducting the survey. Even after we took the initiative, there is no response from the government showing the sheer apathy in ensuring the basic Right to Education of poor kids" said Heramb Kulkarni, a Pune based activist.

Bastu Rege, founder of Santulan, an NGO that works for children of stone quarry workers said that the delay in kickstarting the process shows that the government wants to hide the number of children who are out of school. 
"On one hand, the government has shut all community school initiatives like those for children of sugarcane cutters,stone quarry workers and brick kilns while on the other, there is no initiative to bring them back to school," added Rege.

EDU MATTERS

• In July 2015, the state education department initiated the drive to identify out of school children in the state and started enrolling them into local schools.
   
• While the state survey found 81,000 students out of school, the national survey conducted under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA) found 1.45 lakh children out of school. After educationists questioned the government's methodology, fresh round of survey was carried in 2016.