6.5 Crore Indians In The Age Group Of 5-19 Never Attended School: Census Report

According Census data 2011, as many as 65.4 million people between the age 5 and 19 years in India have never attended any school while another 44.9 million dropped out of schools between 2001 to 2010.

Out of the 380.1 million people in the age group 5-19 years, 269.8 million (71%) are attending educational institutions. In all, 44.9 million (11.8%) people have attended schools earlier, while 65.4 million (17.2%) have never been to a school.

It was found by Census 2011 that there were about 6.57 million disabled people in the age group of 5-19.

The disabled population of 1.75 million (26.7%) has never attended any school, 0.8 million (12.1%) has dropped out of schools in the last decade while 4.02 million people (61.2%) are attending educational institutions.

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

Further, out of 4.02 million disabled persons attending educational institutions, 2.28 million (56.7%) are males and 1.74 million (43.3%) are females.

In 2001, about 3.3 million (50.5%) 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%) in attending educational institution followed by ‘seeing’ (68%), ‘hearing’ (67%), ‘movement’ (59.6%), ‘speech’ (58.9%), ‘mental retardation’ (47.2%), ‘multiple disability’ (37.2%) and least with ‘mental illness’ (34.1%).

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