The Central Statistics Organization (NSO) has recently released a report on the level of education. The report has revealed that 59.7 percent of students in India go to school on foot, a figure higher than students studying in rural areas. The percentage of girls walking on foot is 62 percent, which is even higher than the average. While for boys it is 57.9 percent.
The report said that when the data of rural and urban areas have been separated, the same trend emerged. 61.4 percent of the boys in rural areas of the country go to school, while the number of girls is 66.5 percent. Apart from this, in the urban areas, the number of boys going to school on foot is 57.9 percent and the number of girls is 62 percent.
Public transport is the second most used medium to travel in the country, with 12.4% of children going to school with the help of this medium. In rural areas, 11.3 percent of children use public transport, while in urban areas the number is 15.3 percent.
The report also emphasizes how students regularly availed of the concessional fare in transportation to attend educational institutions. In this regard, the report says that children from rural areas have taken advantage of the convenience of concessional fare in public transport. 51.3 percent of children in rural areas and 42.7 percent of children in urban areas have taken advantage of this system.
The report also measured the distance from students' homes to schools to refer to these figures. It found that the distance from 92.7 percent of the children's homes to schools in rural areas is within a kilometer radius. Whereas in urban areas, this figure is within one kilometer of the distance of the school from the homes of 87.2 percent children.
About 68 percent of rural households and 80 percent of urban households reported having upper primary schools within one kilometer from home. Whereas 70 percent of urban households reported having secondary schools within the same distance, compared to 38 percent of rural households.