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NEW DELHI, JANUARY 4: At a time when access to higher education is being widely debated — the President signed the OBC quota Bill today — comes another reality check that the problem lies at a more basic level: a national report on the status of elementary education, prepared by NGO Pratham, has shown that enrolment figures of children, between 6 and 14 years of age (this corresponds to Class I - Class VIII), have not improved.

In fact, these have dipped — with 6.8 per cent of these children not in school in 2006 as compared to 6.5% the previous year.

Significantly, more and more children in this age group are joining private schools rather than those run by the government — a trend seen in all states across the country.

This report is based on a sample size of 15,610 villages and covering over 7.5 lakh children surveyed during October and November 2006. In each of the 549 districts, 30 villages were chosen — only 20 villages were chosen in 2005 — and children and their mothers, were interviewed. The report will be released here tomorrow by Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Its key findings:

• For mothers who have had no schooling, chances that their children are out of school is much higher (almost 10%) than that of those who went to school (2.5%).

• In several states and UTs, there has been a dip in enrollment at the primary level. In Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the share of children not in school has jumped almost 12 times over last year; Goa (5 times), Karnataka (4 times), Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh (double of last year).

• Not far behind is West Bengal, where, too, the numbers have almost doubled. The worst performer, despite a change in government, remains Bihar whose numbers have remained static for the last two years: 13.1% of children between 6-14 are not in school.

• Put together with Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, they have managed to pull down the national average despite good progress by a few states.

• Among states that have performed well, the best reduction in not-in-school kids is in Nagaland — where there has been a dramatic increase in enrollment by over 15 times. Another north-eastern state, Manipur, has the second-best performance as it has managed to bring down the numbers five times.

• Haryana comes third as it has brought the numbers down by almost half and Uttar Pradesh has also reduced it by almost 30%. Kerala, of course, has the best figures with only 0.5 per cent of children out of school.

More significantly, Pratham’s survey shows that across all states, there is a steady rise in the number of children going to private schools rather than those run by the government, from 16.3 per cent in 2005 to 18.8 per cent in 2006. And, there seems to be a possible relation between the better-performing states — in terms of less out-of school kids — and this significant shift to private schooling, with a few exceptions. Nagaland, for example, has seen a dramatic shift, from a measly 4.4% in private schools in 2005 to 52.4% in 2006 and it has coincided with its 15-fold rise in enrollment figures. Manipur, also a good performer, emerges at the top in sending its children to private schools (66.4%).Kerala, too, has shown a dramatic three-fold rise in enrollment in the private schools along with its best enrollment figures. Meghalaya and Haryana are also sending almost half of their children to private schools. However, Goa, J&K, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli defy this trend, despite massive increase in enrollment in private schools.