Ungarpur: On the mud floor of a hut in Rajasthan’s Dungarpur district, seven women and a man sit in a circle around three community workers. One of the community workers, marker in hand, asks why their children or grandchildren don’t go to school regularly.
At first, they are silent. Then one woman pipes up: “The kids keep asking for something or the other – pencils, notebooks, and if we don’t get it for them, they don’t go.”
The others murmur their assent. Another woman says: “There is work to be done at home. So they get late for school, or don’t finish the schoolwork. But who’ll do the housework then?”
One by one, members of the group – four widows and an uncle among them – call out more reasons, which the community worker writes on a chart taped to the wall. He then gets them to brainstorm solutions.
The challenge is greater in Dungarpur, one of the poorest districts in the state, where the average literacy rate is 58 percent, according to 2011 data. That compares with a national average of 74 percent and the state average of 66 percent.
“Parents don’t regard school as essential – they will pull kids out of school during harvest time, or if there is work to be done at home,” said Rukmini Roat, a teacher at a state primary school in Sasarpur village in the same district.
“When the kids get pulled out frequently, they fall behind and then lose interest in studies, then it’s hard for them to advance, so they drop out,” said Ms Roat, who is the sole teacher for the 47 students from grade one to five.
Enrolment in schools has risen since India enacted the landmark Right to Education Act in 2009, guaranteeing free and compulsory education till the age of 14. Still, the dropout rate was almost 30 percent at the primary level in 2011.
The rate is likely to be higher in rural Rajasthan, and may climb higher after the state issued an order last month that said only children from families classified as below the poverty line, and those from backward castes and tribes can apply to study in a private school under the education act.
The order would deny more than 300,000 children the right to free private-school education in the state, activists say.
“The need is so acute that some families have no option but to send older children to work,” said Anita Sharma of Save the Children.
“But they also aren’t aware that there are some government schemes that will give them some money, so they can at least send some kids to school,” she said.
This was the case with Jeeja, who lives with her widowed mother and siblings in Charwara village. After her father died, first her older brother, then Jeeja went to Gujarat to work in construction to help the family.
A social worker, on realising Jeeja had dropped out of school, went to her home and talked to her mother. She helped her apply for a widow’s pension and other benefits that together bring about 2,500 rupees a month. Jeeja, 14, returned to school and is now in the eighth grade.
“We must let her study,” said her older sister Pramila, who is married. “I wish I had been sent to school. Jeeja mustn’t stop now.”
(Source: NDTV)