Less than 70% students reaching govt primary schools in 67 U.P. districts, show data

Despite efforts of the education department officials and the government’s emphasis on increasing attendance of enrolled students in government-run primary and upper primary schools of Uttar Pradesh, achieving more than 70% attendance is proving tough, if recent statistics are to be believed.

In these schools functioning under the UP Basic Education Council in 69 districts of the state, the attendance of students has been recorded at less than 70% for the entire month of December 2023, officials admit.

The report prepared based on distribution of mid-day-meals (MDMs) on the government’s Darpan portal—a free platform offered by the NITI Ayog for interface between voluntary and non-governmental organisations and key government ministries/departments/ government bodies—has been sent to all the 75 districts with instructions to improve attendance of students.

As per the data, Firozabad, Ambedkar Nagar and Mahoba districts have recorded 71% attendance of students while in Baghpat, Basti, Bulandshahr, Shamli and Sonbhadra 70% attendance has been recorded.

Agra has recorded 69% even as Varanasi has registered 68%. Gorakhpur and Kanpur Dehat have registered 67% while Lucknow, Kanpur Nagar and Rae Bareli districts have recorded 63% attendance of students.

Even smaller district of Chandauli has recorded 58%, Badaun and Lakhimpur Kheri have registered 59% even as Kaushambi, Muzaffarnagar, Rampur, Sambhal and Sitapur have witnessed 61% attendance of students based on the records of MDM fed to them, the data show.

This is the situation when teachers at many schools are usually known to show little inflated attendance of children for midday meals to ensure no kid goes hungry. They claim that the conversion cost for cooking food of MDM is less than the actual cost, forcing them to resort to this method to meet costs.

Although there is no record of this anywhere but from time to time, during inspections of schools by officials, the issue of MDM consumption by more children than those present has come to light in the past, officials say. Officials claim that a major reason for the low attendance of children is that parents in rural areas have enrolled their children in both private and government schools simultaneously.

After receiving ₹1200 in their accounts through DBT as government support for the child, parents start sending their children to private schools instead of government schools in hope of better education. Headmasters of these schools concede that presently there is no system to remove the names of such children even of this fact comes to light.

Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA), Prayagraj, Praveen Kumar Tiwari said according to the report of Darpan portal, the average attendance of students in Prayagraj district in the month of December was 67%.

“In the past months, there has been some improvement in attendance due to giving notices to teachers at schools with low attendance and withholding their salaries. Efforts are being made to further improve it,” he added.