An ongoing survey of children in the age group of 0-18 years in the State has so far disclosed that 33,344 of them in the 6-18 age group, and 1,26,245 in the 3-6 age group in rural areas are not going to school. In urban areas, excluding Bengaluru city, 8,781 children in the 6-18 years of age are not going to school.
The tentative data indicates that around 4,800 children in the 6-18 age group in urban areas and 9,700 children in the same age group in the rural areas never enrolled in schools.
While around 90% of the door-to-door house survey has been completed in rural areas, 79% households have been surveyed in urban areas using a mobile app, which has a pre-loaded data of households, which transmits collected data to “child survey portal.”
The findings were submitted before a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice N.S. Sanjay Gowda during the hearing of a PIL petition which the court in 2013 had initiated suo motu based on the newspaper report on out-school-children.
Senior Advocate K.N. Phanindra, who is the amicus curiae in the case, told the court that the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj and the Urban Development Departments have taken the step to cover children up to 18 years of age in the survey, even though the Karnataka Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2012, mandates survey of children only up the age of 14 years.
As Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike has so far not commenced the survey of children as per the RTE Rules, the amicus curiae urged the court to direct both the government and the BBMP to conduct the survey of children up to the age of 18 years as was conducted by the RDPR and UDD as the BBMP is contemplating to cover children aged between 6-14 years.
Following this plea of amicus curiae, the Bench directed the Additional Chief Secretary (UDD) to directed the BBMP to conduct the survey of children on the lines of survey being conducted by the RDPR Department.
Meanwhile, the Court directed the Government to compile the final data of survey based on different age categories as suggested by the amicus curiae.
