More than 3,000 children aged between six and 18 in district not availing of formal education

MYSURU: Data collated by the department of public instruction (DPI), Mysuru on the number of children in the age group of six to 16 years makes for grim reading: The report reveals that more than 3,000 children aged between six and 18 across the district are not enrolled at schools and colleges. Interestingly, the number of boys who are not attending schools far outstrips that of girls.
DPI’s project coordinator Krishnamurthy told TOI that, in all, 2,548 kids in the six to 16 age group were not enrolled in schools across the district. “Of the total number, 1,059 are girls and 1,589 are boys,” he added.
The only silver lining in this story is that the DPI was successful in getting 257 of the children – 100 girls and 157 boys – enrolled at school, which in many cases entailed readmission. “We are presently in the process of locating the remaining children not in schools. Thankfully, we have not found evidence of child labour in the district thus far. We suspect that children of migrants account for a large percentage of the huge number,” Krishnamurthy said.
Thus far, DPI has been successful in bringing 78 of the students, supposed to be in high school, back into the fold. The department’s report reveals that the Mysuru North academic district boasts the maximum number of children not attending schools – 272.
What is more, the DPI data reveals that many children, aged above 16 – kids supposed to be in pre-university – were also out of academic circulation. As many as 742 adolescents, aged between 16 and 18 across the district are reportedly not pursuing formal education. Again, it was the Mysuru North academic district that came out on top of the list of most adolescents out of the loop, with 143 of them.
Officials, both in the DPI and the department of pre-university education, are of the opinion that many of the kids in their late teenage years are likely to have joined the workforce.
Reiterating the DPI’s belief in large-scale migration of families resulting in the district having as many children out of the schooling system, Krishnamurthy said, “We will request panchayat development officers to submit letters about migrant families in their purview. Also, one cannot discount the possibility of obsolete data. For instance, it is quite possible that a kid not enrolled in school in Mysuru could probably be in a school in another district.”