Urban-rural divide in primary education not too wide

With improved funding patterns and fund utilisation levels, a stock-taking evaluation of the primary education scenario in India reveals that rural India is not far behind urban India.

A performance evaluation of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), a government welfare scheme aimed at providing elementary education to children aged 6-14 years, shows that access to education in rural areas is only marginally less at 87 per cent, compared to 89 per cent in urban areas. The programme covers the entire country and all schools except private unaided schools.

Surprisingly, only 7.2 per cent of rural households surveyed reported dropouts, as against 17 per cent in the case of urban areas. Moreover, rural India has been more successful in increasing the enrolments of girls under the scheme rather than urban India. Enrolment of girls under the scheme for urban areas was 45 per cent, while rural India posted a better figure of 47.1 per cent.

 

In rural areas, 53 per cent of children who do not go to school are girls, while in urban slums, the proportion is slightly higher at 57 per cent.

The teaching staff in rural areas is also more educated as against its urban counterpart. A majority of 56 per cent of teaching staff are graduates in rural areas, compared to only 37 per cent graduate teaching staff in urban areas. However, primary education in rural India suffers in the area of infrastructure, as 60 per cent of the schools do not have electricity, while 88 per cent do not have a computer centre. Bihar, Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh are some states which especially lack in adequate infrastructure.

The evaluation carried out by the Planning Commission reveals that the scheme, with an outlay of Rs 13,100 crore, has improved its fund utilisation levels to 73.6 per cent during 2006-07 from 50.5 per cent in 2003-04.

Most states transfer more than 95 per cent of the funds to the districts and almost all funds (99 per cent) are being utilised. The highest share of funds at the district level is spent on civil works, while expenditure on computer education is the lowest. The SSA, which was formally launched in 2001-02, has been financed by a cess on tax on personal income, corporations and services since 2004.