In Search of Neglect

October24, 1970 Constitution enjoins that by 1960 free and compulsory education be extended to all children up to the age of 14. Actually, in 1968-69 only one-third of the children in the age-group 11-14 were in middle school and even by the end of the Fourth Plan the percentage would rise to only 42. These, it should be added, are figures of enrolment, and say nothing about how many actually complete middle school education. On more than one occasion recently, the Union Education Minister has conceded that in the last few years the progress of primary education has actually slowed down. In any case, how little statistics of enrolment in primary classes mean is seen from the Education Minister's admission that about half the primary schools in the country have no buildings of any kind; how many are without teachers and how many without the minimum teaching materials, he did not say.