AT least 15 crore (150 million) children and youth in India have gone out of the country’s formal education system while roughly about 25 crore (250 million) people are below the primary definition of literacy, the country’s education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday (12) said.
Addressing a session on “Job creation and entrepreneurship” organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on the second final day of its annual meeting in New Delhi, Pradhan said, “If we take into account the numbers of children and youths between the age of 3-22 years who are enrolled in government, private and charitable schools, anganwadis, Higher Education Institutions and in the entire skilling ecosystem, the cumulative figure from all the verticals is around 35 crore while (the country's) population in the particular age group is around 50 crore.”
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Indian education minister Dharmendra Pradhan (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
“This means that at least 15 crore children and youth are out of the formal education system. We want to bring them into the education system,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said.
Pradhan, who took over as the education minister last month following a major reshuffle, said a census following the independence of the country had found that 19 per cent of the population was literate then.
“After 75 years of Independence Day, the statistics of literate population has reached 80 per cent. Which means 20 per cent population or roughly around 25 crore are still below the primary definition of literacy,” he said.
Elaborating on the various provisions in the new National Education Policy, Pradhan said it is not just a document, but a roadmap for the next 25 years to achieve “certain targets by the time we complete 100 years of independence”.
Pradhan, who is also the minister for skill development, said that for the first time the government has combined education and skill departments.
“The move has created a new approach for good livelihoods,” he said.
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