LITERACY AND SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN INDIA

This paper uses large repeated cross-section surveys to analyses the progress in school attendance and literacy rates in nineties for both boys and girls in India. The study explores the trends, initiatives and issues of enrollment and completion rates over the period 1951 to 2001. In this context, the study examines issues like access to school, school attendance and quality of school education in terms of learning achievements, teacher-student ratio etc.
The results reveal that universal primary school attendance has been almost achieved in urban areas. However, the dropout rate in rural areas is one in every five children between ages 6-11 years. Thus, primary school completion rate do not exhibit much progress over time and given the high dropout rate, achieving school completion rate is not expected in near future. Moreover, drop-out rate between primary and secondary school is high and also gender gap widens. There has been visible improvement in literacy rates over the 1990s, especially for women. The results suggest that universal school attendance can be achieved in India by strengthening the mass education programmes.