By Dr. Gyan Pathak
It may be shocking to know that about 10 per cent of children in India aged 6-10 are out of schools, and out of pocket health expenditure of Indian rural households are just unaffordable to them since they need to spend Rs 4,129 yearly on hospitalisation and Rs 539 monthly, which they simply can’t afford. The report of the National Sample Survey 79th round conducted during July, 2022 – June, 2023 has also revealed some other shocking findings including of indebtedness and NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) status among youth.
Children in primary education ore only 90.1 per cent, 89.2 per cent in urban areas and 90.5 per cent in rural areas. Female enrolment is 89.9 per cent, 88.7 per cent in urban areas and 90.3 per cent in rural areas. Male enrolment is 90.3 per cent, 89.6 per cent in urban and 90.6 per cent in rural areas.
Government schools enrolled 76.7 per cent of them in the rural areas and 36.5 per cent in urban areas. Government aided private schools in rural areas enrolled 5.5 per cent, and in urban areas 18.2 per cent. Private schools in rural areas enrolled 16.6 per cent and in urban areas 43.8 per cent.
Persons of age 6-18 who never enrolled in formal education due to several reasons. Financial problems prevented 14.9 per cent in rural and 23.6 per cent in urban areas. These figures were 25.1 and 19.9 per cent for non-interested in study, 22.2 and 15.5 per cent patents not interested to send their children to schools, 12.6 and 15.1 per cent due to poor health or disability, and 25.1 and 26 per cent for other reasons.
Among all people above 15 years of age 81.6 per cent of people can read and write short simple statements in their everyday life with understanding. This figure for female is just 74.8 per cent and for male 88.3 per cent. It shows a huge gender gap, but a silver line seems to be emerging. In the age group of 15-24, this figure in 97.9 per cent for male and 96 per cent for female.
Mean years of schooling in formal education for the age group 15 year and above in only 8.4 in the country. Females spend only 7.4 years while male 9.3 years. In rural areas mean years is just 7.5 for all, 6.4 years for females and 8.5 years for males. In urban areas, it is only 10.5 years for all, 9.7 years for female, and 11.2 years for males. The figure is disheartening.
People above 25 years of age having some secondary education in the country was 38.6 per cent, 56.6 per cent in the urban areas and 30.4 per cent in the rural areas. At all India level only 46.2 per cent people of this age group had some secondary education while the percentage of female was only 31 per cent. In urban areas the figures for males and females are 63 and 50.1 per cent. Situation is worse in rural areas where only 38.4 per cent of males and 22.4 per cent of females have some secondary education.
Youth in the age group of 15-29 not in education, employment, and training were 25.6 per cent in the country, out of which females were 44.6 per cent and males only 8 per cent.
Average medical expenditure per household during the last one year was Rs 4,496 in the rural areas and Rs 6,877 in urban areas. This cost per person was Rs 1,035 and Rs 1,879 respectively. For non-hospitalized treatment the average medical expenditure per household in the rural areas was Rs 545 per month and for urban areas it was Rs 621 per month. These costs per person were Rs 125 and Rs 170 respectively for rural and urban areas.
Average out of pocket expenditure per household per year were Rs 4,129 in the rural areas and Rs 5,290 in the urban areas. These expenditures were Rs 950 and Rs 1,446 per person. Non-hospitalisation average out of pocket medical expenditure were Rs539 per month in rural areas per household and Rs 606 per month in urban areas. The per person per month non-hospitalisation medical expenditure was Rs124 in rural and Rs 166 in urban areas.
Indebtedness is very high for the person above 18 years of age per 1 lakh persons. A total of 18,322 people were found indebted per lakh in the survey year. Rural indebtedness in higher at 24,322 while urban indebtedness was 17,442. Males are more indebted than females in both the urban and rural areas. This shows that above 18 per cent of the people in the country are indebted, which means those people are finding it difficult to manage their expenditure in their current level of earnings, which is alarming. (IPA
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