Out-of-school kids? stats: NGO, officials at loggerheads

NAGPURr: There are very few things that the NGOs and education department agree upon. Real statistics related to out-of-school kids is definitely at top of the list which makes them disagree about. The district education department insists there are just over 1000 such kids while the NGO Sangharsh Vahini claims the figure is much more, almost double than that.

On Friday afternoon, education expert from western Maharashtra Heramb Kulkari met with both sides and expressed his concern over the increasing number of kids remaining out of school.

Kulkarni, who is regularly consulted by the government over issues related to out-of-school kids said, "The tendency of principals is not to report out-of-school kids, or to majorly under-report the number. of them. They do this to avoid further paperwork and maybe even a reprimand on why students enrolled in their muster are not attending regularly."

He added that in fact the government appreciated those schools that present the facts truthfully. This helps the government to work on soltions in a proper way.

"In Nandurbar schools were showing out-of-school kid numbers at 80-90 etc but one teacher did his job honestly and mentioned that there were a thousand such kids under his jurisdiction. That teacher was felicitated by the state's principal secretary Nand Kumar and even I went to meet him," said Kulkarni while telling education officials to pass on the message to schools under them.

Officials who had come from various talukas in the district cited problems faced while collecting data about out-of-school kids.

One official said, "We always try our best but in some communities in rural area the parents themselves don't send their kids to schools. The elder kids are forced to lend a hand to parents, the younger ones are asked to look after the toddlers. Still, we keep trying to bring these kids back to the school.