A recent study has indicated that Bihar has notched several impressive improvements in the education sector. These include
- Less than 3% children between the age group of 6 to 14 are out of school. In 2005-06 children in this age group who were out of school amounted to 25 lakhs, this has come down to 5.9 lakhs.
- 92.7% children have enrolled in VI-VIII, in earlier 3 years this figure was only around 32%. One of the main reason for this is almost doubling of the schools (114.3 schools per one lakh from 60 schools 3 years ago).
- Average attendance in classes I to VIII is now 61.6% compared to less than 40% thre years ago.
- Some of the incentives given by Nitish Kumar govt. credited with this improvement include, free uniform to children enrolling in classes VI to VIII. Earlier girls enrolling in class IX got free bicycles, which has now been extended to boys too. Doubling of schools and off course mid-day meal school.
- 94.1% students study in Govt. schools, 5.7% in private schools and ).2% in unrecognised madarsas.
Study undertaken by Asian Development Research Institute, Pratchi (WB) and Centre for Economic Policies and Public Finance.
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