The Indian government cut down a massive fiscal aid of $278 million between 2010 and 2012 for its primary education, which resulted in 1.4 million children remaining out of school, says a report from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
As per the report, India ranked among the top five countries whose children, between six and 11 years of age, remain out of school. The UNESCO report titled "Education For All (DFA) Global Monitoring Report-2013/4" revealed this when the session of Indian Parliament was on, on Monday.
As per the report, there are 57.8 million children out of primary school globally. Around half of this figure of the world's out-of-school population lives in conflict-affected countries.
The report explains how Nepal succeeded in bringing down its out of school children's percentage to one, after overcoming the conflict situation. Meanwhile, Burundi achieved 94 percent enrolment rate, which was 54 percent in 2005, the report said.
The UNESCO report attributes India's dismal performance in primary education to several factors but the key was cutting the spending for education by $278 million between 2010 and 2012, the report said. It also pointed out that EFA will miss its 2015 deadline to put all children in school.
"Combined with the news from UNESCO that aid to education has fallen yet again, the lack of progress in reducing out-of-school numbers confirms our fears - there is no chance whatsoever that countries will reach the goal of universal primary education by 2015," The Times of India quoted UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova.
As per the report, the following countries have achieved results in primary education:
1. In Nepal, 24 percent children of primary school age were out of school in 2000. By 2013, the rate came down to just 1 percent with the out of school population falling by 6,60,000.
2. Vietnam, with its new curriculum, focused on a particular section of disadvantaged learners and managed to get more than half of its children into schools between 2000 and 2010.
3. Ghana doubled its education expenditure and saw the number of children enrolled in schools rise from 2.4 million in 1999 to 4.1 million in 2013.
4. Morocco brought in the teaching of Amazigh, a local language, in primary schools in 2003. The measure brought down the percentage of out of school children to four percent in 2009 from nine percent in 2013.
5. Burundi completely cancelled the school fee in its primary schools in 2005 and the percentage of schoolchildren enrolled in primary schools increased from 54 percent to 94 percent in six years.
