Cool Bihari: School Chale hum - Education for all

The `School Chale Hum' programme under the SSA has turned out to be one of the most successful endeavours in Bihar with nearly five lakh out-of-school children being brought back to schools under it during the last two years.

In fact, the efforts of Bihar government under the SSA programme, which aims to bring quality elementary education to millions of children, have yielded positive results. Not only has the state been allocated the highest budget, but it has also sent back a record number of children to classrooms.

The success of the programme has now created a need for strengthening the secondary education infrastructure across the country.

At present, out-of-school children in the age-group of 6-14 years has come down to 3 per cent in 2009 from 13.1 per cent in 2005. Programme officer Ravi Shankar Singh of Bihar Education Project (BEP), which is the state implementing agency of SSA, said, "Out of the approved budget, 60 per cent is sanctioned by the Central government, while the rest 40 per cent is shared by the state government. Now approximately 6 lakh (5,22,586) children are out of school, while over five lakh children have been sent back to classrooms."

Similarly, the proportion of out-of-school girls in the state has also dropped from 20.1 per cent in 2005 to 2.92 per cent in 2009, added BEP sources. What lends further credence to the efforts of the state is that the maximum number of children who have started going back to school are Muslims and SCs. In March 2008, the Muslim child population in Bihar in the age group 6-14 was 33.06 lakh and of them only 2.83 lakh were out of school. The number of out-of-school Muslim children now stands at 1.52 lakh, while 1.57 lakh SC students are yet to attend school.

Labels: Bihar 2.0, Education in Bihar, School Chale Hum, Video

Posted by Ajit Chouhan on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 9:28 AM | Permalink

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Truly motivating Statistics Ajit!
In my last visit to the place, I did notice the number of schools that have been built and the number of children who come there.

I am sure that all the efforts we all put in will be going a long way in bringing the lost glory back!

Posted by Kshitiz Anand | 10:27 AM

Yea it is, infact during my last visit the most significant and inspiring change that i saw was the free bicycle support for female kids. This small gesture has really transfored education for girl child in rural Bihar.

I remember taking few pics where a girl child is cycling ahead and few guys carrying their bags look at her with great awe and appreciation.
Times are really changing and its good to see guys like you who are coming forward and taking ownership of bringing about this change.

I think each one of us have the ability and potential to bring about significant change on ground, all we need is some imagination, a small dream and a big heart :)

Posted by Ajit Chouhan | 10:32 AM