16,000 kids are out of school

In the survey conducted across 33 districts, a staggering 11,405 children at the elementary level and 5,278 children at the secondary level were out of school, ringing alarm bells in the department to immediately initiate interventions to enrol them in the schools.

Hyderabad: An alarming revelation has come to the fore exposing the dire status of school education in the State. Over 16,000 children are out of the school during the academic year 2023-24.

This was revealed in an extensive survey on the Out of School Children (OoSC) taken up by the School Education Department this year.

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In the survey conducted across 33 districts, a staggering 11,405 children at the elementary level and 5,278 children at the secondary level were out of school, ringing alarm bells in the department to immediately initiate interventions to enrol them in the schools.

These statistics also include children of migrant families in the State.

Children in the age group of 6-14 years are considered out of the school if they did not complete elementary education – either never enrolled in the school or dropped out without completing elementary education. A pupil of an elementary school absent for more than one month will also be considered out of the school child.

As for the elementary level, with 956 OoSC, Jogulamba Gadwal district topped among 33 districts. And Siddipet district has the highest number of OoSC i.e., 398 at the secondary level.

Hyderabad has 553 children at the elementary level and 21 children at the secondary level, who were out of the school. Reasons for this trend, according to sources, include family’s financial hardships forcing their wards to prioritise work over their education.

With Professor Jayashankar Badi Bata, an admission drive to increase enrollment and strengthen the government and local body schools for the academic year 2024-25 is underway in the State, the department has focused on enrolling OoSC to the schools.

With the help of Amma Adarsha Patashala committees, the government and local body schools have been instructed to identify schoolage and OoSC, dropouts, never enrolled children and long absentees and design an action plan to enrol them into the schools. In addition, the schools were told to prepare necessary academic interventions for the OoSC.