One in five children in Madhes out of school

Kathmandu, Aug. 14

Out of a 100, about 20 children (up to 17 years of age) in Madhes Province are out of school or college.

A more bizarre fact is that 14 of them have never been to school or college, according to a special report on children from the 2021 Census recently published by the National Statistics Office (NSO). In Madhes, 14 per cent children have never been to school and 5.5 per cent have attended school or college but have dropped out.

This is exceptionally high compared to the national average of 5.4 per cent of the total children never going to the formal educational institutions.

According to the 2021 Census, there are 9.87 million children in Nepal of which 5.11 million are male and 4.75 female. The number of children has gone down by 10.9 per cent from 2011 to 2021, however, the number of girl child has decreased greatly: -12.9 per cent compared to -9.1 per cent in case of male.

There are 29.16 million people in Nepal.  

According to the statistics published by the NSO, more children from the semi-urban areas have been left out of school. While only 2.8 per cent of the rural and 4.3 per cent urban children never went to school, about 8.2 per cent children from the semi-urban areas never attended any school or college. Semi urban bhaneko chai kasto thau ho?

This is a surprising fact for many. Educationist Prof. Dr. Bal Chandra Luintel said that the unstable  state of people in semi-urban areas and their transitory nature might have contributed to this findings.

Likewise, Deputy Chief Statistician of the NSO, Dr. Hem Raj Regmi, said that this could be because of higher population in semi-urban areas which have about 39 per cent population against 28 per cent in  urban and 33 per cent in  rural areas.

Overall literacy rate is also the lowest in the semi-urban areas. These areas have only 91.2 per cent literacy of 5-17 years of children. This is below the national average of 94.1 per cent.

Province wise, Gandaki has the lowest rate of children staying out of school with just 1.1 per cen of the total children never attending  education instituion.  This is followed by Bagmati at 1.8 per cent, Sudurpaschim at 2.6, Karnali at 2.7 per cent, Koshi at 3.1 and Lumbini 3.7 at per cent.

However, the dropout rate is the highese in Lumbini with 6.9 per cent and lowest in Gandaki with 4.4 per cent.

Similarly, literacy rate of 5-17 years children is also the lowest in Madhes Province. It has 85.7 per cent literacy while the Gandaki province has the highest literacy rate – 97.8 per cent.

Meanwhile, the latest statistics showed that approximately 13.5 per cent children (10-17 years) in Nepal have been involved in non-household economic activities.

The number of such children is also high in Madhes Province. About 15 per cent children in this province are involved in income-generating works while 11.6 per cent children of Karnali are involved in non-household work, which is the lowest. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 15 August 2024.