11% of rural Karnataka kids yet to enrol in Class 1

BENGALURU: Around 11% of children aged 6-7 in rural Karnataka are yet to take school admission, a citizen-led household-based national survey has revealed.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) (Rural) 2020 (Wave 1) released on Wednesday has pointed out that these children are not drop-outs, and they could be waiting for schools to reopen to seek admission.
Schools remain shut in the state since the Covid-19 outbreak in March this year and there is no decision yet on reopening them."One widely anticipated consequence of Covid-19 pandemic was that many more children would drop out of school. Although the true picture will be known once schools reopen, ASER 2020 asked whether children have currently enrolled for the school year 2020-21," the report said. The telephonic survey conducted in September covered 3,128 families in 900 villages across Karnataka.
‘Parents may be waiting for schools to reopen’
Karnataka is among states with a sizeable population of kids awaiting admission. The others are Rajasthan (14.9%) and Telangana (14%). Nationally, across age groups, the number of children who are not yet enrolled in school has increased from 4% to 5.5%. The proportion of children not enrolled in schools is much higher in Karnataka compared to the 2018 data. In the age group of 6-10 years, 6.4% of students have not enrolled as against 0.2% in 2018. Among 11-14-year-olds, around 6% are yet to join schools, while it was only 1.2% in 2018.
“Many parents might be waiting for schools to reopen to take admissions as they might not want to pay fees for the time when the child is not going to a school. They may not want to take the risk. The age group of 11-14 is when children shift from primary schools to high schools,” said Nataraja J, research manager of the ASER Centre here.
While schools are closed, admissions continue to be open. “In rural areas, many parents believe schools will not open this year. They do not want to pay fees and fail to get any service. There could also be cases where parents do not have money to pay for admissions,” said Sashi Kumar D, secretary of Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka.
Niranjanaradhya VP of the Centre for Child and Law, NLSIU, said: “Instead of linking it to reopening of schools, the government should start identifying these students at the gram panchayat level. This plan should be immediately put in place as we need to get students enrolled.”