6.54 crore Indians never attended school: Census

As many as 6.54 crore people in the age group of 5-19 years in the country have never attended any school while another 4.49 crore have dropped out of schools in the last decade.

According to the 2011 Census data, there is 38.01 crore population in the age group of 5-19 years of which 26.98 crore (71 per cent) is attending educational institutions. 4.49 crore (11.8 per cent) people have attended schools earlier while 6.54 crore (17.2 per cent) have never been to a school.

There were about 65.7 lakh disabled people in the age group of 5-19 at census 2011 in India, according to the census data.

17.5 lakh (26.7 per cent) of the disabled population has never attended any school, eight lakh (12.1 per cent) has dropped out of schools in the last decade while 40.2 lakh people (61.2 per cent) are attending educational institutions.

The proportion of disabled persons who never attended any educational institution in 2011, was found to be highest among persons with 'multiple disability' (54.4 per cent), followed by 'mental illness' (50.3 per cent) and 'mental retardation' (41.2 per cent) whereas persons with 'any other disability' (17.7 per cent) show the least percentage.

Further, out of 40.2 lakh disabled persons attending educational institutions, 22.8 lakh (56.7 per cent) are males and 17.4 lakh (43.3 per cent) are females.

In 2001, about 33 lakh (50.5 per cent) out of 65.3 lakh disabled persons in the same age group reported attending educational institutions. There is an improvement of about 11 percentage points for the disabled persons attending schools in the age-group 5-19 during the decade 2001-2011.

It is further noticed that disabled persons with 'any other disability' show the highest percentage (71.2 per cent) in attending educational institution followed by 'seeing' (68 per cent), 'hearing' (67 per cent), 'movement' (59.6 per cent), 'speech' (58.9 per cent), 'mental retardation' (47.2 per cent), 'multiple disability' (37.2 per cent) and least with 'mental illness' (34.1 per cent).

Maximum percentage of disabled persons who attended educational institution earlier is seen in 'movement' (17.7 per cent) followed by 'mental illness' (15.5 per cent), and least in 'multiple disability' (8.4 per cent).

Photograph: Reuters