Question : School Enrolment Rate

(a) whether the number of children admitted to schools in the country including the rural areas remained low during the year 2014-15;

(b) if so, the details of enrolment in the schools in the rural areas, State-wise;

(c) the details of funds allocated for primary and secondary schools in the rural areas during each of the last three years, State-wise;

(d) the steps taken by the Government to increase the enrolment rate in the schools and particularly in the rural areas during the said period; and

(e) whether some State are still lagging far behind in enrolment of children in schools and ensuring quality education for them and if so, the details thereof?

MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

(SMT. SMRITI ZUBIN IRANI)

(a) & (b): The enrolment of children at elementary level in rural areas has reduced from 11.10 crore in 2012-13 to 10.75 crore in 2013-14. This is due to birth rates coming down in some States, weeding out of duplicate enrolments and also partly due to non-reporting of data by some private schools. The enrolment at secondary level in rural areas has gone up from 2.33 crore in 2012-13 to 2.49 crore in 2013-14. The State-wise details of enrolment at elementary level and secondary level in rural areas during 2012-13 and 2013-14 are given at Annexure-I.
(c) The State-wise details of funds released by the Central Government under SSA and RMSA schemes during 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15 are at Annexure-II.



(d) & (e): The Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) programmes provide a number of incentives to encourage enrolment and retention of children in schools. These includes enhancing access to primary, upper primary & secondary schools, strengthening school infrastructure like school building, additional classrooms, toilets, drinking water facilities etc., improving the teachers pupil ratio as well as strategies for gender positive textbooks, gender sensitization of teachers and educational administrators.
The Central Government through SSA has introduced several measures to improve the quality of elementary education in the States through (i) the ‘Padhe Bharat Badhe Bharat’, a foundational programme to improve early reading and writing with comprehension and early mathematics; (ii) a focussed programme on strengthening Science and Maths learning at the upper primary level; (iii) sharing an exemplar on continuous comprehensive evaluation in elementary education developed by the NCERT; (iv) notifying learning outcomes by class and stage of education brought out by the NCERT; (v) conducting the 3rd round of National Achievement Surveys for Classes III, V and VIII to track student learning outcomes; (vi) providing funds and technical guidance to states for annual refresher training of teachers and (vii) providing academic support to teachers and schools through Block and Cluster Resource Centres.

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