Another Red Mark on Bihar’s Report Card

WITH Chief Minister Rabri Devi herself a junior school dropout, this is one shocking statistic that Bihar does not want to be reminded about...

WITH Chief Minister Rabri Devi herself a junior school dropout, this is one shocking statistic that Bihar does not want to be reminded about. No other state even comes close to the state’s alarmingly high dropout rates.

There are 700 students in Sri Mahant Haryadas High School in Patna. But both teachers and students know that only half of them will appear for the Class X exams. According to the teachers, about 300-400 students drop out of the school every year. In poor areas like Saharsa, Katihar and Madhepura the dropout rate goes up to 70 per cent in primary schools and 90 per cent in secondary schools.

‘I Want to Learn English’
Guddia Kumari
TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Guddia Kumari has been dropping in and out of school. As a result, she is still in Class I. Living with her grandmother, Guddia had to drop out when the latter fell ill. She then went to work as a maidservant but fell critically ill after being ill-treated by the family.

Now, her grandmother has decided to send her back to school. ‘‘If you have education, you can become anything you want to. People will also respect you and treat you well,’’ says Guddia. And despite her resolution to study seriously, she, like others in her area, has no idea what to do after Class V. ‘‘My grandmother doesn’t have money. She can’t send me to a private school. I think I will go back to working again,’’ she says. Guddia has a burning desire to learn English, which was supposed to be introduced from Class III this year but is yet to happen. ‘‘How much can I do with Hindi. At the house I was working, the children there used to have English books. I can only become like that if I also study English,’’ she says.

Story continues below this ad

But nobody in the state education department seems to be worried. The education minister brushes aside the problem and says steps are being taken to control it. The director blames it on the parents. Lower down, officials admit the problem is bad but have no details. There have been no reports or studies on the matter.

Among the few worried are those working in the education sector. For them, it means the state’s future lies in the hands of a generation of illiterates. ‘‘The next generation will continue to be as uneducated. Eighty per cent of the children are enrolled in government schools,’’ says educationist Vinay Kant. ‘‘School eduction here is not relevant to the lives of children, it doesn’t meet expectations. This is despite the demand for it. Even the present education system is shrinking in terms of efficiency and infrastructure,’’ he adds.

The socio-economic conditions, poor infrastructure in schools and a shortage of teachers are just some of the problems behind the high dropout rates. According to the World Bank, over six million children aged between 6-10 years are outside the primary school system and another two out of three do not reach Class V.

Yet there are no alarm bells. ‘‘We are going to improve the infrastructure. The dropout rate has come down. A few years back it was 66 per cent. But people are conscious now and that is a good sign,’’ insists education minister Ram Chandra Purbey.

‘I Wanted to Study, Not Work’
Pintoo Kumar
ABOUT six months back, 13-year-old Pintoo Kumar dropped out of school while in Class IV. He now works at a flour mill. ‘‘The teachers used to come only sometimes. But I wanted to study. I don’t want to do this work,’’ he says, adding, ‘‘I never failed in class.’’
But his mother, Badhan Devi, adds: ‘‘What can we do? We need money so he has to work. Anyway they weren’t teaching properly at school. They promised to give Re 1 everyday but we never got it.” She and her husband sell peanuts by the roadside. ‘‘We are poor but the government doesn’t help us in any way,’’ she says, adding that they had to spend their own money for their sons’ books. ‘‘We can’t afford all that so we took him out of school. Do we have any other choice,’’ she says.

But educationists are not convinced. ‘‘Nothing sends alarm bells ringing in this state. Nobody is bothered,’’ says Kant. Even the government’s incentives like midday meals and free books have failed to take off due to lack of proper implementation. In Chapra, for instance, free books were distributed only this month, almost six months after the start of the academic session. In many other districts, children are still waiting for books.

Story continues below this ad

With 14,000 teachers’ posts lying vacant, many schools are operating with half the required staff strength. ‘‘In many schools, even the available teachers are absent because the government puts them on election duty, census duty or something else. So the school remains closed for months,’’ says Kedarnath Pandey, general secretary of the Bihar Primary Teachers’ Association.

But the government insists it is doing everything possible. ‘‘With the District Primary Education Programme, the dropout rate is going down. The system is not ideal but it’s not that bad. The main problem is parents don’t want to send their children to school,’’ claims Arun Kumar Singh, director of education.

‘I Want to Be a Doctor, I’m Angry Because I Can’t Study’
Vinod Kumar
ONCE upon a time, 16-year-old Vinod Kumar was a regular Class IV student at the Jorghat primary school, usually topping his class and dreaming of becoming a doctor — an ambitious dream for a child growing in one of Bihar’s slums.

Today, the shirts and shorts have given way to a lungi and baniyan. Vinod is now yet another ragpicker on the streets of Patna. Only two of his 50 classmates reached Class V. ‘‘I feel bad. I even had to return my book to school,’’ says Vinod, who was made to leave school after his father, a rickshaw-puller, injured his foot and lost his job.

Story continues below this ad

‘‘What do they teach in school? Anyway he is needed at home,’’ says the father. The Rs 30 that Vinod earns everyday is spent on buying vegetables, supplementing his mother’s income as a maid servant. ‘‘I want to become a doctor. There is so much illness here. I could even make my father healthy. But now let’s see if my situation improves,’’ he says, adding quickly, ‘‘that is not going to happen. I feel angry that I can’t study further.’

Even during his few years in school, Vinod says his teachers were as irregular as the promised midday meals. Books were never distributed and all that Vinod got was one notebook in four years. Even if Vinod had continued his studies, there was little opportunity after Class V. The nearest government school, which is kilometres away, does not admit children from this slum, according to social activist Kishori Das.